


Batter, Batter

by guyfierimpreg



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - College/University, Chatting & Messaging, Extensive Knowledge of Baseball, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Light-Hearted, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2017, Past Relationship(s), Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Semi’s rubber ducks, Shirabu’s shit ass emotional stability, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-01-19 01:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12400488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guyfierimpreg/pseuds/guyfierimpreg
Summary: Semi had long since accepted that there would eventually be complications with his baseball career, but he never expected them to come with razor-straight bangs and a shady style of disrespect.He especially didn't expect them to kick him out of first string.(Then again, he doesn't usually end up withfeelingsfor his complications, so there's that.)





	1. Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> guess who's been watching too much daiya but at the same time keeps going back on her semishira bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [Centerfield](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KQydlJ-qc) by John Fogerty

> [ Group Message ]
> 
> **satorin:** and so the curtain rises on another school year…  
>  **satorin:** what will it have in store for the shiratorizawa university baseball team?  
>  **satorin:** the drama! the romance! the heart-pounding excitement of it all!  
>  **satorin:** i can barely stand it…!!!  
>  **semisemi:** as long as calc doesn’t kill me first we’ll see it through together  
>  **satorin:** semisemi is bad at calc www  
>  **semisemi:** semisemi likes practical math and this is just a bunch of greek bullshit  
>  **satorin:** excuses excuses!! keep those grades up or coach-sama will kick you off first string wwwwww  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** You’re failing on the first day of classes?  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** I have excellent connections. I could find you a tutor.  
>  **semisemi:** tendou is just being a smartass  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** The sentiment stands.  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** It’s the least I can do after upsetting you so badly last year you punched me in the face.  
>  **semisemi:** i thought you weren’t mad about that  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** Directly in the face.  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** I did not have my mask on.  
>  **semisemi:** i’m still sorry about that  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** Sometimes during cold weather the pain in my jaw flares up.  
>  **semisemi:** you’re not allowed to spend time alone with tendou anymore  
>  **semisemi:** you’re gaining a sense of humor  
>  **satorin:** “ψ(｀∇´)ψ  
>  **oohira:** Don’t create something you can’t control, Satori.  
>  **satorin:** i can’t take credit for creating him  
>  **satorin:** i only molded what was already there  
>  **satorin:** ANYWAY  
>  **satorin:** has anyone seen hayato  
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi:** He may have lost his phone again.  
>  **oohira:** He does that a lot.  
>  **oohira:** We have chemistry together this semester but that was a couple hours ago and I haven’t seen him since.  
>  **oohira:** I never got his room number from him.  
>  **semisemi:** i swear i’m gonna glue it to his goddamn hand  
>  **semisemi:** actually we’re missing jin too  
>  **soekiwi:** I’m here.  
>  **soekiwi:** Just a little busy unpacking the rest of my stuff before practice.  
>  **satorin:** you still haven’t unpacked??  
>  **soekiwi:** Coach needed my help with pre-season things and I can’t just say no.  
>  **semisemi:** of course you can  
>  **semisemi:** just say no  
>  **semisemi:** easy as that  
>  **satorin:** maybe we shouldn’t be taking advice on how to speak to coach from the guy that’s gonna lose his chance at being the ace because of his attitude www  
>  **semisemi:** shut it  
>  **satorin:** w
> 
> [ User **satorin** kicked from Group Message ]

* * *

“I’m telling you, Eita,” said Tendou, waving a banana in Semi’s face. “We’re both gonna make first string this year and all our dreams are gonna come true just like we talked about last year. Koshien and beyond! _Ace pitcher_ Eita takes Shiratorizawa University to Koshien once more!” He held the banana like a microphone and put on his best announcer voice. “Shiratorizawa hasn’t seen victory on the Koshien stage in several years, but can upcoming superstar pitcher Eita Semi turn the tides and bring honor and glory back to this powerhouse school?”

Semi grabbed the banana and replied, “First off, stop stealing my bananas. Second, let’s just see what kind of new meat we have to deal with before we go sticking our necks out to put our heads in the clouds.” He peeled the banana and shoved half of it into his mouth at once, taking a bite. “Don’t forget Jin is a pitcher too. He’s got just as much of a chance at ace as I do.”

They continued to chat as they walked to the first practice field, many of the new players already warming up before the coach showed up to line them up for introductions. A cursory glance told Semi more than enough about the new additions to the team: they all seemed, as per tradition, to be exceptional players, but the ones that caught his eye the most were the few new pitchers trading throws with each other.

In particular, the pitcher currently ignoring any other teammates in favor of throwing pitches to Ushijima in the bullpen. Semi furrowed his eyebrows as he tossed his banana peel into a nearby trash can on his way over to the dugout. Ushijima nodded in compliance with the kid’s request and Semi’s lips pursed as he put one foot up on the bench in the dugout to tighten the laces on his cleats.

He nodded his head toward the sight on the field and said, “Know anything about him?”

Tendou pulled one arm across his chest to stretch it out and said in reply, “I don’t know _everyone_ , Semisemi. I just have a very particular brand of extroversion that allows me to procure greater amounts of information from people than the average person.” The look Semi gave him could have withered an entire rosebush. “Don’t look at me like that. Anyway, I think that’s Shirabu. Apparently he was a reliable pitcher in high school so I think we’re in good hands.” He switched arms and hummed. “He does seem pretty chummy with Wakatoshi, though. Maybe he’s got his eye on your spot.”

“Well, he can keep looking,” Semi said, unable to hide the sneer in his voice. “He can enjoy that big fat backwards K on his stats. I’ve worked too hard to lose first string to a freshman.”

“ _Methinks the lady doth protest too much_.”

“Your accent is atrocious. And methinks the lady doth protest with enough paranoia considering everything the lady hath been through.”

Before Tendou could reply with an appropriately smartass comment, the coach stepped onto the field and called for everyone to line up with the returning players behind him and the new recruits in front of him. Semi fell into line next to Soekawa and one of the third years, hands behind his back dutifully as Washijou started from one end of the newbies and moved to the other, row by row. There was a good mix of students from all over Japan, as well as a couple international students that had come to Shiratorizawa on full scholarships much like most of the rest of the team, but Semi had his eye trained on the one Tendou had named as Shirabu the entire time.

When it came time for Shirabu to introduce himself, Semi couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter at how pretentious it was.

Washijou called out, “Next,” and Shirabu took a step forward before opening his mouth and yelling, “Kenjirou Shirabu from Ishinomaki High, and I intend to hold the ace number in my first year.” Soekawa slapped a hand over Semi’s mouth after the laugh slipped out to try to keep anything more from exacerbating the situation; thankfully, Washijou ignored him.

“Those are some big aspirations, son,” Washijou replied, arms crossed over his chest and one eyebrow raised.

Shirabu took a deep bow and said, “With respect, sir, I made it into this school with no recommendations specifically for baseball. I passed the entrance exam because I wanted to pitch for such a prestigious and powerful school, as well as pitch to such a distinguished and well-known catcher.” He stood back up and continued with, “So I won’t let anything stand in my way of doing just that.”

“I see.” Washijou turned his head slightly to look at the next player. “And you?”

“Taichi Kawanishi, also from Ishinomaki,” the boy replied, tired and with no discernible enthusiasm. “I’m here because Kenjirou’s mom pays me to babysit him and make sure he doesn’t get his ass pounded in by someone taller than him.” Shirabu made a small choking noise. “Oh, and I play second base.”

Washijou looked unimpressed.

Peeling Soekawa’s hand off his mouth, Semi said quietly enough for just him to hear, “We’re going to have an interesting year this year.”

* * *

> [ Group Message ]
> 
> **kamigata:** I FOUND MY FUCKING PHONE HOLY SHIT GUYS I MISSED SO MUCH  
>  **kamigata:** wait what time is it  
>  **kamigata:** FUCK  
>  **kamigata:** I MISSED PRACTICE

* * *

Semi fiddled with the lock to his room before shouldering it open, kicking it shut behind him and greeting the inhabitants of the room.

“Evening, Yoshi,” he said to his roommate. “And a good evening to you as well, Sir Squeaks-a-lot,” he said to the plain rubber duck sitting motionless on his desk.

If nothing else, after a year of living together, Morishima wasn’t phased anymore by Semi talking to his duck, which made him a damn good sport because things got _weird_ sometimes. He regarded Semi with a raise of his hand and a, “How was practice?”

“Short,” Semi replied. “Mostly introductions then a whole lot of cardio. It’s mostly just a warm-up for tomorrow’s newbie hazing.” His phone buzzed in his pocket with a message and he pulled it out to read it. “We’ve got some interesting ones this year. One of them is determined to be the ace as a first year.”

> [ New Message ]
> 
> **:**? **  
> ** **semisemi:** **  
> ** **:** **  
> ** **semisemi:** **  
> ** ****:

“Don’t be too mean to him.”

He looked up from replying to his sister’s messages and put on a fake hurt expression. “Me? Mean? Never. I am the nicest person alive.”

Morishima didn’t miss a beat. “You’re an asshole.”

“Only sometimes.”

> **:** did u make 1st string?? **  
> ** **semisemi:** don’t know yet, first real practice is tomorrow  
>  **:** dont even bother coming home 4 summer vacation if u dont make 1st  
>  **semisemi:** naturally  
>  ****:

He replied with a matching heart and tossed his phone onto his bed before making quick work of unbuttoning his practice jersey and throwing it onto the back of his desk chair. As he pulled off his undershirt, he looked at his desk and squinted at it, looking to the left and right before turning around to look at Morishima. “What happened to my other ducks?”

Morishima spun around in his chair, pencil still between his fingers. “Oh. They were freaking me out so I put them in the drawer.”

“I thought I told you not to touch my ducks.”

“When the ducks interfere with my sense of personal safety when I’m alone, I touch the ducks.”

Semi shrugged. “That’s fair,” he replied, then slid open the drawer to retrieve the ducks. Once they were back in position on his desk (Sir Squeaks-a-lot flanked by a matching angel and devil set of ducks Tendou bought for him as a joke that backfired) he finished changing into a plain t-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting shorts, sitting down at his desk and opening his computer.

The program he had set up earlier that day before leaving for his classes was still running to optimize his system. Store-bought software was ineffective due to him building his own operating system, so he had no choice but to write his own code. Everything seemed to be working fine, thanks in part to a lot of rubber duck throwing a couple weeks earlier as he was trying to iron out all the issues with the code itself. But despite all his constant frustrations with missing semicolons, programming and coding brought him a sense of peace. It was nice to have something to do with his life that he actually liked doing in case anything happened with his fledgling baseball career.

He shut the lid on his computer again and bid Morishima goodnight before turning off the light on his side of the room. The true season started with practice in the morning, and he was ready to make it up to Washijou after the previous year’s tournament.

* * *

> [ Group Message ]
> 
> **kamigata:** I’M AWAKE THIS MORNING  
>  **oohira:** Look who found his phone for two days in a row.  
>  **kamigata:** i seriously don’t know where it went  
>  **kamigata:** like for real where the fuck does it keep going  
>  **kamigata:** it’s like i set it down for two seconds then it grows legs and runs off to be in the circus  
>  **kamigata:** it’s tiring  
>  **kamigata:** but at least i’ll make it to practice today  
>  **kamigata:** field 1 right??  
>  **oohira:** Yes, field 1.  
>  **oohira:** Make sure you eat all of your rice.  
>  **kamigata:** sure thing dad


	2. Hell is Empty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [The Boys are Back in Town](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWRJxKpBHJk) by Thin Lizzy

**HELL: DAY ONE**

**0730 HOURS**

 

The brisk but clean chill of a typical spring morning hung in the air even as the sun started creeping higher in the sky, showering the practice field in a wave of brand-new sunlight. As usual, the instructions given to them by Washijou were simple: be lined up on the field by eight o’clock sharp, and anything they wanted to do before practice was on them and couldn’t be used as an excuse should they perform at a less-than-desirable level later on in the day. Most of the team spent the time after breakfast playing easy games of catch or warming up their swings, but the more mentally unstable members of the team decided on fielding practice.

Yamagata looked at home at shortstop, and Kawanishi went out to join him on second base, the two of them chatting amicably between rounds of batted balls flying their way. Semi could tell Tendou was chomping at the bit to go join them out on the field but he managed to keep him wrangled near the dugout by reminding him of his round of nearly endless retching the year before. It was best to take it easy before practice, considering everything they were in for.

At the plate, Kyeong-soon Yang tossed another baseball up and down in her hand. “Center field! Go long!” she called out before throwing the baseball up into the air and taking a swing. The ball bounced off the aluminum bat with a satisfying metallic noise and sailed out into center field and directly into Ishikawa’s glove.

With an exaggerated sigh, Tendou said, “I love the kind of woman that can kick my ass.”

Yang grabbed another ball out of the bucket next to her and called out, “Grounder to short, runner on first.”

“Who’s batting?” Yamagata called back.

The grin on Yang’s face stretched from one ear to another. “Jin.”

“Oh, fuck,” Yamagata replied, then turned to Kawanishi. “Jin may not be the best hitter we got on the team but he’s got a fast pair of legs. You’d normally do a 6-4-3 for a grounder to short with a runner on first, yeah?”

Kawanishi nodded. “Obviously. It’s the easiest way to pull a double play.”

“Can’t do that with Jin running. He’s too fast; he’d make it to first in the time it takes you to tap second and turn to throw to first. Best bet is 6-3 and cut our losses with a man on second.”

“No offense, senpai,” said Kawanishi, readying himself into the proper position as Yang tossed the ball up one final time before pulling back to swing, “but maybe another second baseman couldn’t make it. Do it anyway.”

As the ball dropped to the field and rolled toward Yamagata’s position, he scooped it up and barked out a laugh before throwing it to Kawanishi, who immediately tapped second and didn’t bother taking any time between the tap and the throw to first to execute it. The speed and agility used to twist his body in such an unnatural position impressed even Semi, who had been playing with someone as flexible and noodle-like as Tendou for a year now. First base threw it back to Yang and Yamagata trotted over to Kawanishi and slapped him hard enough on the back to make him lurch forward just a little.

“That was awesome!” he said, loud and enthusiastic as he slapped Kawanishi on the back a few more times, apparently ignorant of the pained expression the other wore from the repeated abuse on his back. “Where did you learn to play like that? How long did it take to master that? Are you excited to be here? You’re gonna be first string, right? I’ve never had a partner as quick as you! It would be a shame if you didn’t make it.” He kept slapping Kawanishi as he rambled on and Kawanishi looked like he would rather be anywhere but there. Semi couldn’t help but laugh.

Over in the bullpen, Shirabu had once again asked Ushijima to catch for him. They were too far away for Semi to discern what exactly they were discussing, but he could tell by Shirabu’s body language that he was asking for feedback with every pitch. It was, quite frankly, incredibly annoying to Semi that a pitcher would hang on their catcher’s words to that high of a degree.

Not to say that Ushijima wasn’t an incredible catcher — in fact, after having been featured in a popular sports magazine while still in high school, Ushijima had gathered something of a famous reputation for being a solid and reliable game caller. Many players applied to Shiratorizawa solely for the chance to play with him. Semi couldn’t deny that he was somewhat intrigued by the guy himself when he’d gotten his letter of invitation to attend the school on a sports scholarship. But regardless of Ushijima’s talent and reputation, it just wasn’t Semi’s style to place so much trust in one person, especially as his catcher; after all, the catcher wasn’t the only one involved in the pitching process, and Semi liked to fashion himself above-average at game analysis in tough situations.

Whether or not anyone _agreed_ with him was another story entirely, and despite his best attempts at getting Washijou to be less pissed off at him after the disaster from the previous year’s tournament, it didn’t seem like Semi was making any progress.

(Not insulting his catcher was a good place to start, but Semi was too goddamn stubborn sometimes.)

He watched Shirabu nod his head after Ushijima gave him feedback on the last pitch, and rolled his eyes. If Shirabu wanted to sit at Ushijima’s feet and worship him, then fine. He wasn’t about to stop him, considering the kid probably wouldn’t make first string anyway with both Semi and Soekawa to compete with.

Having had enough of that spectacle, he turned where he was sat on the grass stretching to find Tendou’s ass many different kinds of all up in his face.

To say Tendou was being odd was an understatement: Satori Tendou existed in a constant state of Weird, and the spikes on that scale went from Weird to More Weird, But Still Tendou Normal. Semi had been friends with Tendou nearly instantly when they met during their campus visit, and had long since become accustomed to the Satori Sliding Scale of Strange. Most daily Tendouisms ranked somewhere between a three and a five on the Quad-S.

This was an easy seven.

While Semi was busy sizing up the new kid, Tendou had been hard at work using a spare bat to emulate what he apparently thought were enticing poses, and the one Semi became intimately aware of at the worst time was something that looked like he was barely holding himself up on the bat.

“What the hell are you doing?” Semi asked, and Tendou changed poses.

“It’s called seduction, Semisemi. Watch and you might learn something.”

“It’s the first week of the new school year and I’ve gotten laid more times than you have in your entire life.”

Tendou’s foot slipped on the still-dewy grass and he fell flat on his face with a screech. Semi raised an eyebrow as Tendou pulled himself up onto his knees and brushed himself off. “Rub it in, why don’t you,” he said, mock offended but not hurt by the jab. “Making fun of the virgin is low-hanging fruit. I hope you’re pleased with your low-level intellectual insults, _ultra slut_.”

“Still atrocious pronunciation.” Semi planted his feet on the grass and stood up, holding out a hand to pull Tendou up before his knees got soaked. “Let’s head back toward the infield before Coach shows up.”

The two of them started jogging toward home plate, Yang already collecting balls from the other players and dropping them back into the bucket before hauling it back over near the dugout. She caught notice of Semi and Tendou and winked in Tendou’s direction, which he answered by making a heart with his hands. Semi snorted.

“Don’t laugh. I’ll make her my wife someday.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” Semi said with great and boundless affection.

As the time sneaked closer and closer to eight o’clock, the captain started herding the first years into line before Washijou showed up with Soekawa’s help. The worst first real impression one could make on Washijou was to be late or unorganized, god forbid _both_. Yang did a quick head count and roll call to make sure everyone was present and accounted for before handing the roster over to the captain and heading over to the equipment shed to get everything else out the boys would need for practice.

The captain was a senior named Kiyotaka Akamatsu, a sturdy captain of average height and build that had stepped up from his vice captain role the previous year when their captain fell ill and couldn’t play for a couple games. If nothing else, he was reliable, and Semi appreciated that out of an outfielder as well as a captain.

Akamatsu cleared his throat and addressed the team. “I know we haven’t had formal introductions yet, but I’m your captain. Welcome to the newcomers, and welcome back to the familiar faces from last year. This is our first official practice, and many of you aren’t aware of what you’re in for. No matter what happens, just keep at it until it’s over.”

The first years made a collective noise of agreement, and Shirabu’s eyes met Semi’s. It occurred to Semi that Shirabu probably hadn’t forgotten about him laughing at his declaration the day before, but there wasn’t disdain in Shirabu’s gaze; whatever it was, Semi couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he held Shirabu’s gaze for a moment before Washijou walked onto the field and Semi’s attention snapped to him.

As a coach, Washijou was strict but well-meaning in his strictness, wanting nothing more than to bring out the best in his players; as a man, he wasn’t really much more than a curmudgeonly old man sometimes with a nearly indecipherable accent. Still, everyone held him in high regards not only as their coach but also in general. In his youth, he’d been one of the top fielders for the Yomiuri Giants after fighting his way through high school to become a starter and make a name for himself in the hopes of going pro.

“Straighten out your line!”

Unfortunately, none of that really softened how much of a hardass he could be.

Semi chuckled to himself as the first years shuffled around nervously to straighten out the way they were lined up. At least none of them decided to make a smartass comment like he had the year before — the laps he got for it weren’t the greatest but at least having to run laps constantly for his mouth helped his stamina.

“Welcome to another season,” Washijou said, gruff. “Go run a mile.”

A cacophony of confusion broke out among the first years, aside from Shirabu and Kawanishi, who took off without delay after the upperclassmen. As they ran, Semi looked over his shoulder to see Shirabu a few lengths back, and he told Tendou he’d catch up to him later before falling back to match Shirabu’s pace.

Shirabu did nothing to acknowledge him, looking forward and continuing the run. It was rude, to say the least, but Semi bit down on the inside of his cheek before he could say something he’d regret later on.

“Hey,” he said eventually, a measured attempt at friendship. “I’m—”

“Semi,” Shirabu finished for him, still looking forward. “I know who you are. You’re the pitcher that nearly blew the Johzenji game last year and contributed to why Shiratorizawa failed to go to Koshien.” Semi had no idea how to respond to such blatant disrespect. “If you had followed Ushijima-san’s directions, you probably could have played in the deciding game instead of getting benched.”

Kawanishi muttered something about how ‘not being present means he’s not responsible if Shirabu gets killed’ and picked up his speed to pull away from Semi and Shirabu. It was for the best, considering how hard Semi started grinding his teeth together just to keep himself from mouthing off and starting something he didn’t want to. But it wasn’t _what_ Shirabu said that pissed him off so much as it was _how_ he said it.

“There were a lot of factors in that game that you don’t know,” he said finally, keeping his eyes trained forward. “You don’t really have a place to be saying anything about it, since you weren’t there.”

“I was at the game,” Shirabu replied as they passed a gaggle of first years trying their best to keep up with the insane pace set by Ushijima (at the head of the pack as usual) and failing. “You ignored nearly every call he made.”

“And we won.”

“Barely.” Who the _hell_ did this kid think he was? “I don’t mean to show any disrespect, senpai. You’re an incredible pitcher. I just don’t think this team needs someone as risky as you on the mound.”

“Risky?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You’re unpredictable. Nobody can tell what you’re going to do, which is helpful against other teams but frustrating as a teammate knowing that you’re the person we all have to count on despite not having any idea what your next move will be.” Shirabu finally looked at him for the first time since they started talking and added, “There’s no advantage to playing behind a pitcher who only thinks of himself.”

Semi’s pace slowed unconsciously until he came to a soft stop, the first years they’d passed earlier passing him by as he stood there watching Shirabu’s form shrink as more and more distance was put between them. He wasn’t sure exactly how he should be feeling after hearing such a scathing remark from an underclassman, and one that shared his position at that. What right did Shirabu have to tell him he was worthless to this team, after how hard he had worked the previous year to take them as far as he did? Whoever Shirabu was before Shiratorizawa, it didn’t matter to Semi.

The one thing Semi had never expected having to do was fight for his spot on the team, but it didn’t look like Shirabu would be going down without a fight.

* * *

At six o’clock, Washijou made them all line up again and bow to the field before dismissing them. Since their opening run, he and Shirabu hadn’t said a single word to each other, and Semi wasn’t about to change that now as he watched Shirabu gather his belongings up from the club room and leave, bidding Kawanishi a good night. Semi finished shoving his practice uniform into his bag and hauled the strap over his shoulder before he left the heat of the club room for the breeze of nighttime. He passed by Yang talking to the new first year manager — Matsuura, or something — and caught snippets of their conversation.

“He’s so lucky to have a girl like that,” Yang said, sighing. “Girls that beautiful don’t just happen every day.”

“I didn’t really think of him as the type to have a girlfriend,” Matsuura replied, twisting her long blonde hair around her finger. “They seem happy.”

Semi couldn’t stop himself from looking across the field to catch a glimpse of Shirabu walking next to a girl a couple inches shorter than he was, dark brown hair reaching about halfway down her back. In truth, he wasn’t sure if anyone could stand being around Shirabu for longer than five minutes, but perhaps that assessment was just pettiness.

As always, Tendou was his saving grace from himself, bounding out of the club room and throwing an arm around Semi’s shoulders. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop before it gets any worse.”

He felt himself let go of the tension he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Thanks, Satori.”

“No problem!” Tendou removed his arm from around Semi’s shoulders and used both hands to push him forward. “Now let’s go read this week’s _Jump_ together. They’re finishing up the hideout raid arc and I wanna know what happens before I get spoiled by the boards!”

“Do I get a choice in the matter?”

“Nope!”

“Fine. But _you_ have to listen to  _my_ theories for once. Deal?”

* * *

 

 

> From: Eita  
>  To: Kyou
> 
> So we had our first real practice today. Coach started it with a mile run just like last year. For the most part the first years just kind of bumbled around trying to figure everything out, but those two I told you about on lunch break are something else. Kawanishi isn’t too bad, I guess. He’s pretty quiet and keeps to himself.
> 
> Shirabu drives me absolutely nuts though.
> 
> He’s so disrespectful! Not only did he show up out of nowhere without being scouted for the team, he’s got the fucking nerve to tell me that we failed to go to Koshien last year because of me. I didn’t even play in the final game, but he’s saying it’s because I got benched that we lost, and I got benched because apparently I’m a terrible wild card nobody wants to deal with.
> 
> Anyway, we’re still on for Golden Week, yeah? I’ve missed my better half.
> 
> — Eita


	3. Ain't Always Greener

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [Rich Girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=322tGmZMCUA) by Daryl Hall & John Oates

>  [ New message to user **satorin** ]
> 
> **semisemi:** shirabu hasn’t said a word to me in almost two weeks  
>  **satorin:** after he read you for filth  
>  **semisemi:** after he greatly disrespected me as his senpai  
>  **satorin:** after he read you for filth  
>  **semisemi:** i hate you sometimes  
>  **satorin:** w  
>  **semisemi:** i’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here but he wants to be a massive asshole  
>  **semisemi:** i don’t understand how someone can just say that to someone else like it’s not a big deal  
>  **semisemi:** who does he think he is  
>  **satorin:** in fairness he’s a good pitcher so it’s not totally unfounded  
>  **semisemi:** i don’t care how good he is, i want a goddamn apology  
>  **satorin:** would you apologize if you were him?  
>  **semisemi:** of course  
>  **satorin:** really  
>  **semisemi:** ok probably not  
>  **semisemi:** why does what i would do matter  
>  **satorin:** you’ll understand when you’re older wwww

* * *

A sad squeaking noise filled the room as Sir Squeaks-a-lot bounced off the wall on Semi’s side, then the wall on Morishima’s side, and finally landed pathetically on Morishima’s desk.

From what Morishima had learned since beginning his tryst of rooming with Semi, throwing rubber ducks around really did help programmers do whatever it was they did on the computer. The thing is, the method probably wasn’t intended to be used by all-star pitchers with a 150 km/hr fastball. It was a miracle Semi hadn’t put a hole in the wall yet.

And, really, he could handle the duck throwing.

When it was about programming.

Another duck bounced off the wall and veered upwards to bounce off the ceiling before dropping to the floor and bouncing a couple times. They probably had to talk about whatever had upset Semi to the point of duck murdering before he _did_ put a hole in the damn wall. The last thing they needed was to be fined for destruction of the school dorms.

Morishima put his hands together and touched the sides of his conjoined hands to his mouth, turning around in his chair to find Semi collecting his ducks to throw them again. “Do you want to talk about whatever’s got you pissed off?” _Before you break something_ , went without saying.

Grabbing another duck, Semi replied, “Not really.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t an option.”

Semi grabbed the last duck and threw all five of them onto his desk haphazardly, then inhaled deeply and turned around. “Coach put me on second string.”

That was seriously it? Morishima closed his eyes and contemplated the outcome of saying that verbatim to Semi, then decided against it. “Well, I mean, that sucks, but it’s not really the end of the world, right? You have a chance to make it back to first string before Koshien.”

“You think I don’t know that? That’s not what’s got me pissed off.”

“Shirabu made first string.”

“ _Shirabu made first string_ ,” Semi repeated, forcing it out between gritted teeth. “Coach wants to make him the starter and his shitty little ego has gone through the _roof_. He won’t even acknowledge my existence at this point and I’m about ready to rearrange his pretty face.”

It was probably best to keep all comments about the ‘pretty’ thing to himself. Morishima grabbed Sir Squeaks-a-lot off his desk and held it out to Semi. “Listen. I know you’re mad about that. But throwing rubber ducks at Mach 5 in our dorm room isn’t the way to deal with it.”

“What the hell else do you want me to do, then?”

“I don’t know, whatever else it is you do to take out your frustrations? After last year’s _incident_ didn’t you spend a lot of time in the batting cages? Go beat the shit out of some balls instead of our poor wall.”

It was actually a pretty good idea.

* * *

Ever since Semi was old enough to understand what baseball was, he’d always wanted to be a pitcher. He liked the idea of controlling the pace of a game and the thrill of a good strikeout. He liked facing strong batters one-on-one with eighteen and a half meters between them.

Still, despite his love for pitching, he never felt more free than when he was batting.

At the plate, it was just the batter against an entire team of nine. There was nobody to tell him what to do, when to do it, how to do it — it was him and the other team and nobody in between. The cheers of the crowd always got drowned out when he was standing at the plate, poised and ready to hit whatever the pitcher had to throw at him. It was so satisfying to make contact with the ball at the perfect place and smack it out of the park as the other team watched in awe and agony.

The pitching machine shot out another pitch and Semi swung, sending the ball crashing into the fence opposite him with enough of an impact to make the entire cage shake. It spat out another, then another, then another, all of them sent sailing to the other side of the cage without mercy.

After the last ball loaded into the machine joined its brethren scattered on the ground at the other end of the cage, Semi pulled his helmet off and shook out his hair, running his hand through the sweaty mess it had become. He couldn’t say he wasn’t still mad anymore, but he at least felt better than he had while throwing ducks at the wall.

When they were in middle school, Kyou had once told him that he had a bit of an anger problem, which prompted him to flip her off. Sometimes he wondered if she was right, but figured he controlled it well enough on his own to not have to worry about it. And it wasn’t like his anger was ever really _unfounded_ — sure, he was a big fucking hothead who threw rubber ducks around for free therapy, but he didn’t just unload on people for doing nothing wrong.

He sighed.

He was probably being childish about Shirabu, all things considered. Yeah, he was _expecting_ to get back on first string, and yeah, Washijou had every right to _not_ put him back on after his performance the year before, but it wasn’t really anything _Shirabu_ did to him besides existing. Still, it was easier to be mad at Shirabu for ‘stealing’ his spot than it was to admit to himself that he didn’t really deserve it after his heinous display of shitty attitude.

The door to the cage opened as Semi dumped the last of the balls he’d used back into the bucket. Morishima probably sent Tendou out to get him before he spent all night out there and missed his morning classes. Semi waved a hand, but didn’t turn around.

“In my defense, it was Yoshi’s idea—” he started, then turned around to see a familiar face with more shock in it than he’d ever seen. “You’re not Tendou.”

Shirabu pulled his face back to its usual unaffected neutrality and said, “Obviously not. I didn’t expect anyone to be out here. I’ll just go.”

“No, wait— I mean, I’m done. I’m leaving. You don’t have to go.” Semi rubbed the back of his neck, all too aware of how awkward the tension was between them after what had happened. “Listen, about today—”

“Forget about it.”

Semi pressed his lips together tightly and inhaled quickly, letting the breath go slowly out through his nose. “Can you just let me apologize for being a dick, please? _Without_ interrupting me?” Shirabu rolled his eyes but said nothing. “I know you think I’m a garbage pitcher or whatever, and I probably didn’t react… _well_ to string assignments today, but we’re supposed to be teammates and I don’t like that we can’t even talk to each other like normal people.”

He didn’t think it was an exaggeration, either. Even though Soekawa seemed like he was barely holding onto the last bits of his sanity between splintered, bloody fingertips, he and Semi never had a problem just being friends, despite vying for the same position. He didn’t expect Shirabu to be his blood brother after a couple weeks of knowing each other, but being unable to stand being in the same room was trying on his patience more than it should.

Scratching at his cheek with a black-polished fingernail, he continued with, “I’m not asking you to hold my hand as we jump off a cliff together, but I just. I don’t know. I don’t want this, though. I can accept that you’re first string and I’m not, fine, whatever, but can we just _try_ to get along?”

By the way Shirabu held himself, Semi had known almost immediately that he came from a higher class family with a lot of money. It was hard to not hold it against him because it made him come off as haughty and arrogant sometimes. But despite likely being surrounded constantly by socialites, he didn’t seem to have any friends other than Kawanishi and his Mysterious Alleged Girlfriend.

(Not that Semi had ever really seen him outside of practice, but other members of the team always had friends meeting up with them after practice was over to go hang out or study together. Semi had only ever seen the Mysterious Alleged Girlfriend picking Shirabu up.)

It was hard to hold being bad at making friends against someone, even when they drove you up a wall, and Semi knew it was stupid and petty to continue whatever small feud had been born between them. Offering his hand in friendship was all Semi knew how to do, but Shirabu didn’t seem like he wanted to take it at face value; teammates would have to be enough.

Shirabu opened his mouth and closed it, pursing his lips. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said,” he said finally, stepping further into the cage and crossing his arms. The lights of the batting cage washed him out a bit, but Semi could see that he wasn’t trying to be combative. Maybe this was just how he was. “But fine.”

“Shake on it?” Semi said, holding out a hand.

At first, Shirabu just stared at his hand, and Semi wanted to scream because he was trying his fucking _best_ here to salvage this burning bridge and if Shirabu didn’t want to make a genuine effort he was going to get dangerously close to throwing another punch—

But then Shirabu sighed and met Semi’s hand in a loose handshake. His hand wasn’t nearly as calloused as Semi’s — probably for good reason, because as a pitcher he wasn’t expected to put as much effort into batting as Semi chose to — but it didn’t seem like he kept very good care of his hands. His nails were kept short, but not clipped or filed. Before Semi could inspect it more, Shirabu withdrew it and shoved both of his hands in his pockets.

The awkward silence had returned. Semi was getting exceptionally fucking tired of everything between the two of them being so _awkward_. “So, uh. Yeah. I’m gonna head back to the dorms. The cage is yours.”

“I changed my mind,” Shirabu replied.

He felt stupid asking, but Semi found himself doing it anyway. “Did you want to walk back to the dorms together?”

“I don’t live in the dorms. I have an apartment off-campus.” Right. The Mysterious Alleged Girlfriend. It made sense that they’d probably be living together. Shirabu turned to leave. “Goodnight, Semi-san.”

“‘Night.”

Somehow they’d made progress without actually going anywhere. Semi watched Shirabu leave and then dragged his hand down his face with a quiet groan. This was getting ridiculous.

* * *

In life, there are constants, but there are also variables. Sometimes, you can predict the variables, and sometimes you can’t. But _sometimes_ the variables come out of absolutely fucking _nowhere_ and _scalp you_ because you hadn’t considered that they could even be a possibility.

An Konoe was one of those variables.

Usually, she only came after practice was finished to collect Shirabu and go home, but one particular Sunday she felt inclined to come somewhere in the middle and stay to watch, which proved more than a little distracting for some of the team members. It was already an unusually warm spring day, and after five hours of working in the sun everyone was just about ready to keel over. The last thing they really needed was a beautiful woman showing up and making it worse for themselves.

If Shirabu was going to have a girlfriend, it made sense that she’d have to be as attractive as him, if not more. Considering the fact that he already looked like an escaped teen magazine model, it narrowed his choices down considerably. And Konoe _delivered_. Five and a half feet of perfect hair on top of a perfect face with perfectly done makeup behind a pair of large sunglasses and a sun hat. The dress she’d chosen for the day was short but tasteful, showing off her legs without being indecent and a lovely shade of yellow with white flowers on it that complimented her skin tone well. And, honestly, if Semi hadn’t already known that she and Shirabu were together — allegedly, because he still hadn’t gotten confirmation, but allegations were enough — he probably would have at least asked her out for lunch.

“So you’re telling me that _Shirabu_ is dating _her_?” Tendou said, stuffing an onigiri that the managers made into his mouth.

“Allegedly,” Semi replied, “but yeah. I’m kind of jealous.”

“I’m _beyond_ jealous.”

The only person who seemed supremely annoyed with everything that was happening was Shirabu himself.

He grabbed an onigiri and shoved it into his mouth whole angrily, making him look like a pissed off hamster as he grabbed another one, then a third for good measure. Kawanishi slapped his hand when he reached for a fourth and Shirabu looked offended.

“You’re gonna get fat, stupid,” he said, and Shirabu conceded as he put the second into his mouth, also in one piece. “Stop being such a baby. You know An-chan is hot.”

Swallowing, Shirabu said, “That doesn’t give everyone the right to _gawk_ at her like that. She’s a person, not a chunk of meat.”

“That’s definitely not my angle,” Semi said, leaning back on his hands where he was seated on the grass. “I’m mostly just shocked that you have a girlfriend at all, let alone one as pretty as she is.”

“‘S not my girlfriend,” Shirabu replied around the mouthful of the final onigiri. “She’s my fiancée.”

“Seriously?”

Shirabu narrowed his eyes. “I can be engaged.”

“We all just kind of figured that because you’re such a big dick you couldn’t possibly have a girlfriend or a fiancée or anything like that!” Tendou interjected cheerfully, swiping another onigiri from Matsuura’s tray. As usual, Tendou said the things everyone else had too much tact to. Semi was surprised he didn’t get his ass kicked more often.

“He’s got a point,” said Kawanishi, and Shirabu flipped him off.

“You just don’t seem like the type, I guess,” Semi said, shrugging a shoulder.

“The type to be engaged?”

“The type to be interested in girls.”

Shirabu clicked his tongue and crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “I like girls. I like An-chan. We’re happy.”

Yang pulled herself to her feet from where she sat next to Semi and brushed herself off. “Well, you two can be as happy as you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that poor An-chan is all the way over there instead of eating my _wonderful_ onigiri, so if you need me I’ll be over _there_ ,” she thumbed at where Konoe was standing, “hitting on your hot fiancée.” She flashed them a peace sign before grabbing her tray and making her way over.

“So how are the wedding plans again?” Semi asked.

“We have an open relationship,” answered Tendou.

Yamagata called across the field to get Kawanishi’s attention, and Shirabu snatched another onigiri from Matsuura’s tray while he wasn’t looking and quickly stuffed it into his mouth. Semi wanted to warn him about not eating too much before going back to practice, but instead he just watched Shirabu scarf down a fifth as Washijou called for everyone to finish up their break.

As they walked back toward home plate, Tendou said, “He’s gonna puke.”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

> [ New message to user  **yoshi** ]
> 
> **semisemi:** wanna get wasted and rant to me about alexander the great again   
>  **yoshi:** i thought you’d never ask


	4. On the Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [Owner of a Lonely Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG_VDj8Eh_g) by Yes

**5:30 AM**

Shirabu threw his phone across the room, unwilling to deal with his alarm going off.

 

**5:31 AM**

Unfortunately, his unwillingness to face the day did nothing to negate the fact that he _had_ to get out of bed and get ready for class, so he pulled himself into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes, cursing everything that dared exist on this plane of reality. But mostly himself for being a stupid asshole who chose a five-days-a-week eight in the morning math class.

Konoe, being three years older than him, had only a couple classes left to take before graduation, which meant she got to sleep in until the wonderful hour of nine if she chose. From there, she could have a leisurely morning before heading to campus for a 12:15 class.

He’d never been more jealous of a single person in his life.

He shimmied out of bed, trying his best not to wake her up, and grabbed his phone off the floor where it landed. The screen was set to Maximum Asshole Brightness and Shirabu squinted at his notifications: one missed call from his mother and a multitude of missed messages from Kawanishi. His mother had called at approximately three in the _goddamn_ morning, and normally he’d put off listening to her voicemails in favor of literally anything else, but the first message in the string of messages Kawanishi had sent him was

> **taichi:** you’re just mad because you can’t accept the truth that you would absolutely fuck the fish-man

and Shirabu just wasn’t having any of that conversation today. Or yesterday. Or ever.

He shoved a hand down the front of his boxers and scratched himself as he opened the voicemail from his mother and held the phone up to his ear.

“ _Good morning, darling!_ ” started the voicemail, and Shirabu couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto his face at his mother’s voice. His parents were currently out of the country visiting family in Scotland, which left Shirabu in charge of the estate while they were gone. It wasn’t a hard job, considering most of his responsibilities were just making sure the employees of the house got paid. “ _I know the plan was for your father and I to be back by the end of the week, but your Gran insisted. ‘Just another week, Moira.’ I couldn’t say no._ ”

Granny MacLeod was reaching her seventies and no less of a hardass than she was in her youth. It wasn’t surprising that she strong-armed his parents into staying longer, but it _was_ surprising that she hadn’t sent someone to drag Shirabu himself to the motherland for a long-deserved visit. She was crotchety and mean but she meant what she said and when she told Shirabu that he was her favorite grandson, with the help of a little alcohol, he knew he could take it to heart.

(It also made him feel a little smug that kiss-ass _Douglas_ paled in comparison to him in Granny’s heart.

Suck it, Douglas.)

“ _I know you’re busy with baseball and everything, but you’ve got some days off this week from school and I need you to go to the merger meeting with the Konoes in our stead._ ” Shirabu groaned. He hated business meetings. “ _I know you’re groaning_ ,” _damn_ this woman, “ _but it’s good practice for the future. Anyway, it’s just about dinner time and you’ll be up in a just a couple hours, so I’ll hang up now. Love you!_ ”

The voicemail ended there, and Shirabu deleted it. He’d call his mother later to talk.

 

**5:45 AM**

One fabulous piss later, Shirabu stood in front of the mirrored medicine cabinet and made a face. Despite being blessed with objectively good genes (thanks to his mother’s modeling career), he always ended up looking like shit in the morning. Grumbling to himself, he plugged in his hair straightener and opened up the cabinet to grab his razor and his shaving cream.

Or just his razor, because he forgot to fucking get another can of shaving cream yesterday. As much as he wanted to just give up, he couldn’t go walking around with five o’clock shadow; all the baby fat still left on his cheeks made him look like a twelve-year-old as it was, and he didn’t need to make himself look stupider with stubble.

Thankfully, there was a can of some kind of fruity shit Konoe used on her legs on the edge of the bathtub, and this was a Dire Situation. He couldn’t be assed to worry about smelling like a lady all day.

Once he shaved himself clean and washed his face, he grabbed his brush and initiated the daily struggle of detangling the curly hellscape that was his hair so he could pin it back and start straightening it. His mother once told him that it was the most visible part of his heritage, and he told her that it was one he never asked for. On the plus side, once he managed to yank out all the knots in his hair, it behaved a little more and made the straightening process a little easier.

The flatiron wasn’t hot enough yet, so he picked up his phone and decided to finally scroll through the messages Kawanishi sent him last night.

> **taichi:** you’re just mad because you can’t accept the truth that you would absolutely fuck the fish-man  
>  **taichi:** you can’t run from the truth  
>  **taichi:** or that beautifully sculpted ass  
>  **taichi:** your silence speaks volumes

Shirabu left him on read.

 

**6:00 AM**

“Fuck!”

Turns out 400 degrees continued to be hot as shit.

 

**6:45 AM**

So he was starting the morning with a bandaid on his finger, and the bandaid _happened_ to have some cartoon character on it because that’s all they had for some reason. It could be worse. This was nothing compared to the morning last year where he managed to not only burn his hand, but cut his face up shaving too.

He definitely had not cried slapping aftershave on.

(At least not any more than a little bit.)

The most it incapacitated him was that he had some issues buttoning up his shirt, which was made doubly frustrating because he dropped a button somewhere and it ended up uneven, so he had to go _back_ and do it _again_ like some kind of _idiot_ who can’t button a _fucking_ shirt.

“Stop cussing out your clothes,” Konoe mumbled from under the covers.

Shirabu finished rebuttoning his shirt and tucked it into his pants. “Sorry. It’s been a shitty morning.”

“Normal people have shitty mornings,” Konoe replied, sitting up in bed and yawning. Her hair was mussed up from sleep and she lifted her eyemask to give Shirabu an unimpressed look. “Normal people also don’t mutter obscenities at their clothes at seven in the morning.”

“I’m getting the feeling it’s less the swearing and more the seven in the morning part.”

“It looks like I _am_ marrying you for your brain too.” She stretched both arms above her head as Shirabu tightened and straightened his tie before grabbing the argyle sweater vest draped over the back of the desk chair and pulling it on.

Konoe had never been a morning person for as long as Shirabu had known her, and he wasn’t expecting that to change at any time soon. He fixed his hair with his fingers after smoothing out the front of the sweater vest, making sure it fell unevenly the way he liked it. One last check in the mirror mounted on the closet door ensured he was put together and presentable, and he reached for his backpack leaning up against the wall next to the bedroom door.

He had barely gotten a hand on it before he heard a quiet, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” from behind him.

He couldn’t help it; he stiffened reflexively before turning around.

The look in Konoe’s eyes was damning: expectant, but with an underlying sense of sadness to it. The same look she always seemed to have in her eyes when it concerned Shirabu, and he felt like absolute garbage every time.

“I’ll buy lunch on campus,” he replied, far too smart to be playing dumb with her bright blue eyes boring into him even in the dim light coming from the bedside lamp.

Thing was, Konoe herself was _also_ far too smart to be buying his bullshit, but she hummed to herself instead of confronting his blatant redirection, sparing Shirabu from having a conversation he didn’t want to have right now, let alone ever. “Home for dinner, or not?”

“I don’t know yet. Things are getting busy.”

“Of course. Have a good day.”

He nodded, but said nothing else as he turned back around and grabbed his backpack, throwing it over one shoulder and leaving. It was easy to pretend that he didn’t see Konoe sigh into her hands as he closed the door behind him.

 

**7:15 AM**

It was a simple enough ring, really. Gold with a string of sparkling diamonds from one side of his finger to the other. Nothing protruding, low profile enough to wear without catching too much attention, and something for him to fiddle with when he got caught up in his own head.

He spun the ring around his finger with his other hand as he stood on the train platform, waiting for the 7:20 train to the stop nearest Shiratorizawa’s campus. For every feeling he didn’t want to name that the ring gave him, it also gave him something of a sense of comfort; not with the situation necessarily, but with having something with him all the time that kept him on track. He had a future planned and all he had to do was follow the steps on the path toward it and he would be fine. He’d be happy.

He remembered the merger meeting and screamed internally, his face as impassive as ever to conceal from any random people that he had anything as dastardly as _feelings_.

There were reasons why Shirabu was a literature major and he left the business majoring to Konoe: first, because he would rather stick rusty railroad spikes into his eyeballs and then flush them with hydrochloric acid than sit through _anything_ in that career course; second, because Konoe was a _much_ better businesswoman than he could ever hope to be; and third, because nothing activated the ‘fight’ part of his fight-or-flight response than being cooped up in a stuffy conference room talking about _business_ and _deals_ and _the future of our companies_. His parents stopped trying to persuade him to come to their meetings a long time ago when Shirabu made it very clear that he wanted to be left alone with his expansive and oftentimes incredibly bitter opinions on literature.

But here he was, going to a meeting anyway, because despite her being an actual, physical _goblin_ , he loved his mother and didn’t want to let her down. Especially concerning the future of his father’s company, which, really, they could live _just_ as comfortably off the money she made as a model, company be damned.

Maybe he was being a little bit of a baby, but it didn’t matter because nobody could see it so nobody could say anything to him about it, _Kawanishi_.

The train pulled into the station, whipping around stray rubbish lying about and fucking up Shirabu’s hair like it did every _fucking_ morning because it’s not like he spent time on it, right? Someone bumped into him as the doors opened and everyone waiting for the train bum-rushed it like a bunch of fucking animals and it took every ounce of self-control Shirabu could muster not to rip him a new asshole in full view of the gods and everyone. He squeezed his way onto it and managed to hold the line at his spot near the door so he could get off without getting forced to the back and possibly missing his stop.

His phone pinged in his back pocket to notify him of a reminder he had set for himself, and he wiggled around in the sardine can on wheels to extract it.

> _7:20 — Try not to kill anyone on the train_

Easier said than done, really. He scrolled through the rest of his daily reminders and stopped on ‘have overwhelming and all-consuming existential breakdown,’ which he had apparently, at some point, scheduled for two in the afternoon that day. His finger hovered over the ‘delete’ button before he decided to just leave it be.

The train took off and Shirabu got knocked straight into a soccer mom’s arms. ‘Mortified’ was putting it lightly.

 

**8:00 AM**

“Good morning, class,” said his math professor, a stout woman somewhere in her 40s that screamed ‘cat lady’ at him. “Today we’ll be starting on derivatives.”

Yeah, _that_ was what everyone wanted to be trying to do at eight in the morning on a Monday.

 

**8:30 AM**

Shirabu considered dropping out.

 

**8:31 AM**

Shirabu remembered that if he dropped out, he wouldn’t be able to play on the baseball team.

 

**8:32 AM**

Shirabu reconsidered dropping out.

 

**9:20 AM**

God, the line at the campus Starbucks was always _shit_. Shirabu tapped his foot on the floor as the moron in front of him took forever to order, and practically shoved the poor girl out of the way after she was done, leaning an elbow on the counter.

“The usual. And two croissants.”

Kawanishi tapped a few buttons on the cash register touch screen and said, without looking up, “You can have one.”

Shirabu balked. “I am a _paying customer_.”

“And you have powdered donut dust on the front of your nerd getup, which means you’ve been stress eating, which _in turn_ means you can have _one_ croissant,” Kawanishi replied, and Shirabu quickly brushed off the front of his sweater vest. “It’s bad enough you’re gonna drink a venti sized cup of pure sugar.”

“It’s not my fault coffee is bitter and disgusting and needs help to be palatable.”

“You have that in common.”

There wasn’t anything else Shirabu could do to show his immense displeasure with Kawanishi other than glare him down, so he did exactly that and fished his credit card out of his wallet before handing it over. He could kill him later when there were less witnesses around.

 

**9:30 AM**

Kawanishi leaned back in his chair, purposefully making sure to stretch his legs out under the table to take up as much space as possible, even as Shirabu kicked him in the shin. “So what’s got you so stressed out that you’ve turned to vending machine donuts?”

“Nothing in particular,” Shirabu said around the straw of his drink, taking another sip. “The usual. Everything. I don’t even know.”

There was no change to Kawanishi’s expression aside from a single eyebrow raise that spoke volumes. “It’s about An-chan, isn’t it.”

“No.”

“Kenjirou.”

“Okay, yes. A little bit.” Shirabu spun the straw around in the tiny hole in the top of the lid with his finger, leaning his cheek on his other fist, elbow on the table. He still refused to meet Kawanishi’s eye. “I don’t know, just— I don’t know. This morning was… weird. It’s _been_ weird.”

What made Kawanishi an ideal choice for a best friend in Shirabu’s eyes was that he was the kind of person who was perfectly fine sitting in silence with him when the situation called for it. What made him a _better_ best friend, not that Shirabu would ever admit to it, was that he was also enough of an asshole to make him talk about things when he otherwise wouldn’t. The delicate balance of when to hold and when to call was a learned skill that started back in The Dark Ages (middle school).

“You’ve been weird in general since you got all defensive about what Semi-san said at practice.”

Unfortunately, he also got _really good_ at pushing Shirabu’s buttons.

“I was not _defensive_ ,” he said defensively. “I just don’t think it was any of his business to be commenting on his perceptions of me or what I allegedly ‘like.’ It’s rude.”

“Pot, kettle. You’ll get along nicely, I’m sure.”

“Fuck you.” He _did_ have a point though, which Shirabu silently conceded to him. It wasn’t like Kawanishi had to know that he was right sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes. “I think I’m just stressed out about everything that’s happening between the companies and preparing for the regional tournament. There’s a lot of shit going on right now.”

Kawanishi hummed, then looked at his watch. “As much as I would honestly _adore_ putting this psychology degree to good use on you, my break is over and the people need their coffee. Try not to hurt yourself too hard thinking about your Normal Human Emotions while I’m gone.”

Shirabu flipped him off with both hands.

 

**4:30 PM**

His phone buzzed on the library table next to his notebook, and he set down the book he was reading to check it.

> [ New message from user **satorin** ]
> 
> **satorin:** hey!! a bunch of us are getting together in about half an hour to mess around a bit   
>  **satorin:** hit some balls, play some catch, etc   
>  **satorin:** you in??   
>  **satorin:** this is tendou by the way

He looked at the time. He could probably make it to the 4:50 train if he left immediately, which would put him through the front door of his and Konoe’s apartment at 5:30. Plenty of time to order something for dinner or even go out together.

He picked up his phone.

> **kenjirou:** I’ll be there.

 

**11:00 PM**

The apartment was dark when he opened the front door, and he sighed. Konoe probably went to bed not too long before he stuck the key in the lock, leaving one of the side table lamps in the living room on so Shirabu wasn’t stumbling around in the dark when he returned. He kicked his shoes off at the door and threw his backpack onto the couch, too tired to deal with neatness and order in the face of just going to bed instead.

He shut off the lamp and headed toward the bedroom, opening the door as quietly as he could and slipping in, closing it behind him. Without wasting any time, he stripped and kicked the pile of clothes off to the side. It could be dealt with tomorrow.

Carefully, he peeled back the covers on his side of the bed and slipped under them, trying his best not to wake Konoe with the movement. She was on her side turned away from him, and he settled in on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Outside the apartment was quiet. Inside was quiet.

Shirabu wished his mind was as quiet, but the best he could do was close his eyes and pretend that the few inches between him and Konoe didn’t feel like an impossibly wide chasm that he was trying so desperately to traverse, only to keep heading back to safe ground.

He closed his eyes. Tomorrow was another day.


	5. The Clash of the Century

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Semi thought things were getting better between him and Shirabu, they get a lot worse all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [I Won’t Back Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1II7B7rjhMw) by Tom Petty

> [ Group Message ]
> 
> **semisemi:** haha  
>  **semisemi** sent file **cannibalism.png** to the group.
> 
> _A slightly blurry shot of Tendou getting bit on the nose by a swan with the caption “I told him not to” and a string of ‘w’s._
> 
> **satorin:** I WAS IN A GREAT DEAL OF PAIN EITA IT’S NOT FUNNY  
>  **semisemi:** it’s funny  
>  **kamigata:** i agree that’s fucking hilarious  
>  **kamigata:** i thought you knew not to mess with swans  
>  **kamigata:** they’re mean little bastards  
>  **satorin:** LESSONS HAVE BEEN LEARNED ON THIS FINE AFTERNOON  
>  **satorin:** NOW LET’S DROP IT AND MOVE ON  
>  **semisemi:** the nurse at the urgent care gave him a lollipop because he wouldn’t stop pouting  
>  **semisemi:** it’s kind of cute  
>  **semisemi:** he’s got a godzilla bandaid on his nose
> 
> [ User **semisemi** kicked from Group Message ]
> 
> **satorin:** anyway i’m holding auditions for a new best friend  
>  **satorin:** email me for details

* * *

Semi tapped on the down arrow on his keyboard. “On a scale of one to ten, how desperate do you consider answering an ad for a, and I quote, ‘handsome male model type needed for arm candy purposes’?”

“How much are they offering?” Kyou replied, leaning over to take a bite out of the taiyaki Semi held in his free hand. Some of the custard on the inside escaped onto the corner of her lips, and she licked it away before chewing and swallowing. “If you’re good at something, never do it for less than top dollar.”

He scrolled down more and replied, “It looks like 50000 for one gig.” Kyou picked up the cup of soda sitting between them and held it up to him, and he continued scrolling as he sought the straw out with his mouth. He finally caught it after an almost embarrassing amount of time trying, not taking his eyes off his computer screen. “Not really a _job_.”

“I still think your best bet is taking a nice train ride down to Kabukichou and letting your pelvis do the talking.”

“I’m not a _hooker_ , Kyou.”

She looked up at him from her own computer and shrugged. “But you _could_ be. I’m just saying, it’s easy money. Look at that face.” To prove her point, she closed her computer and set it down on the bench next to her, grabbing Semi’s face with one hand and squeezing. “That’s a million-dollar mug right there.”

The look he gave her would have been a lot more effective if his lips weren’t puckered like a fish between her fingers, and she knew it because she snorted when he tried anyway. They probably looked like quite the sight to anyone passing by, but this was the ideal spot to steal wifi signal from the cafe across the street without having to pay to buy a drink just to loiter without being asked _questions_ about his _intentions_ like this was high school again and he was just some dumb delinquent caught smoking on the roof. Plus, he was just happy to have time to spend with his sister again after the last month or so he’d had.

School was finally truly getting into swing now that it was May, which meant twice as much to worry about with the regional tournament coming up. Koshien was a pipe dream without winning regionals, and as far as Semi was aware, even with all the practice games they’d been playing lately — it was nice to get to play despite being on second string, since no coach worth his salt would use his best players in a practice game before regionals in case he had any tricks up his sleeve — Washijou still hadn’t managed to nail down a practice game against their top rival school. On the whole, everyone was just kind of exhausted with all the running around while still trying to keep up with their schoolwork and classes.

One of the worst things about it was that with both of them focused on so much, he and Kyou barely had time to talk to each other anymore, let alone find time in their busy lives to spend the afternoon together. Spending nineteen years and change (specifically, about nine months of change) as roommates sort of fostered a close relationship between two people.

Kyou released her hold on Semi’s face and patted his cheek twice with her palm, grinning her half of the same lopsided grin they both had that he’d seen a million different times in photographs of them together as kids. It was hard not to match it when it reached her eyes that way.

She had to ruin it, though. “So do you want the rest of the taiyaki or not?”

Five minutes later had them wrestling over it in the grass, Semi trying desperately to hold onto the taiyaki that _he_ paid for (with his _hard-earned money_ — “That you bummed from Satori, you ass!”) as Kyou held him in something like a sideways half-nelson and demanded blood. The whole thing was ridiculous, and Semi would have been happy to give it to her if she hadn’t gone and _asked_ for it; by unspoken law, it was now his and if she wanted it, she had to fight him for it.

“Having a domestic dispute?” said a voice behind them, and they both stopped dead in their tracks (Kyou holding Semi in a headlock with her thighs as Semi wildly waved the arm holding the taiyaki around to keep her from getting a grip on it) and turned (as best they could, in Semi’s position) to see one of Sendai’s finest standing there with his hands on his hips.

Ever the eloquent and articulate one, Kyou said, “Afternoon, officer.”

Semi wanted to die.

* * *

Even if he wasn’t on first string, Semi’s reputation as a pitcher preceded him very often with the new first years. In high school, he’d been a famous and sought-after pitcher by universities and even professional league scouts, including Shiratorizawa. It only made sense that the juniors would want advice from such a big name upperclassman.

At least, most of them did.

“You’re not extending your swing enough,” he said to one of the first years who kept stopping his swing early as one of the new pitchers did some soft pitches toward him. “Don’t be afraid of hitting the ball. Commit to it.”

“Good change-up,” he said to one of the American students, a new transfer despite being a second year. “Try adding more backspin to mess with the timing some more and you’ll have a killer pitch.”

And so it continued throughout the day, to underclassmen and upperclassmen alike (who didn’t particularly appreciate being given advice from an underclassman but begrudgingly accepted it based solely on the fact that he was right), until Washijou split up the fielders from the pitchers and catchers. Being on first string meant Shirabu got to practice with Ushijima, and Semi instead got to practice with one of the first year catchers who seemed overjoyed at the arrangement.

In all honesty, the kid reminded him a lot of the kinds of baby-faced depictions of angels in culture: small, cute, inarguably _pretty_. Nonthreatening, however, wasn’t on the table, because Semi had personally been witness to Matsui swearing on his grandmother’s good name that he would bust someone’s kneecaps if they made _one more fucking comment_ about his height. In favor of keeping his kneecaps in one piece, Semi vowed never to crack a short joke with him, but sometimes he couldn’t fight the temptation.

“I think it’s really cool that you’re short,” he’d said one day, and Matsui’s eyes had lit up.

“Really?” His astonishment had been palpable, and Semi fought to keep a straight face.

“Of course. Smaller strike zone.” The speed at which Matsui’s eyebrows had furrowed into two mirrored 45-degree angled lines was absolutely impressive, and it had definitely been worth the punch to the gut he’d gotten in response.

Despite Semi being a dick, Matsui seemed to really look up to him, which made working with him good for the ego and also kind of trying when Semi just wanted to get the job done but Matsui wasn’t quite finished with his daily hero worship. Still, he wasn’t the starting catcher on second string for nothing; in fact, if it wasn’t for Ushijima existing, he probably could have started on first string. Everyone sort of paled in comparison to Wonder Boy, and it had never really bothered Semi until he had his own Wonder Boy he was second fiddle to.

But he wasn’t bitter about it.

He wound up for a pitch and let loose the most scorching fastball he could, unable to stop the small pleased grin that found its way on his face as it nestled perfectly in Matsui’s glove with a satisfying _thwack_. Shirabu clicked his tongue a few feet away and the satisfaction doubled.

Okay, so he was a _little_ bitter. He couldn’t help it.

The idea of admitting it to Shirabu’s face gave him immediate hives all over his body, but safe inside his head Semi could say that even if Shirabu didn’t have a fireball pitch, he at least had a number of breaking balls that did the job well enough. He was a good pitcher that seemed to work well with Ushijima. But none of that really made up for Shirabu being such a _twat_ sometimes.

Since the batting cages, they hadn’t gotten into any arguments but they hadn’t exactly been the best of friends, either. For the most part, Shirabu kept to himself and spoke when spoken to but did nothing to seek out company or conversation with anyone other than Ushijima (obviously) and Kawanishi (which often left him stomping away from conversations steaming mad because Kawanishi decided to make fun of him). The tension that had been hanging between them from before had dissipated slightly, but not really enough to make a real difference. He wasn’t entirely sure how to reach out to someone who didn’t want to be reached out to.

So the only thing he really knew how to do was _try_. And the best he could do by _trying_ was doing his best to be a good mentor as an upperclassman.

He held a finger up to Matsui to let him know he wanted to take a break, watching Shirabu throw to Ushijima. Shirabu’s pitching style, from what he could tell, was solid and reliable, but gave him a feeling he couldn’t really name. It was just so… _safe_. He threw every ball with precision and care, never faltering. It was impressive in its own right, but safe had never been Semi’s style.

His mouth opened before he could stop himself, and he heard his own voice say, “You need to loosen up a bit.”

Ushijima threw the ball back to Shirabu, who said only, “Thank you for the advice,” and continued trading balls with Ushijima with no apparent change in his style. It really pissed Semi off to be brushed aside like that _in general_ , let alone by a junior, but he took a deep breath and counted to ten, pushing it to the back of his mind before getting back to pitching to Matsui.

Normally, Semi could get over something like that. On the whole, the microaggressions of life did little to him in the long run, but when it was _near constant_? His patience started to fail him a bit.

“That pitch would work better from a sidearm throw,” he offered later on, and got, “Thank you for the advice,” in response again, and _again_ with no change in technique from Shirabu.

And later, “Trying to bat like that won’t get you anywhere, you have to fix your stance to be more like this,” met _once again_ with blatant ignorance of every attempt to try to help him.

It wasn’t until around four that afternoon that every nagging frustration in the back of Semi’s mind came out all at once when he tried, for the final time, to help Shirabu be a better asset to the team as a pitcher and as a player. Washijou put Oohira at the plate to hit against the different pitchers, and after he slammed one out of the park, Semi jogged over to him from where he was standing on first base just in time to hear Shirabu let out a quiet _tch_.

“You should have thrown a cutter,” he said, no disrespect meant. “Reon’s timing is good enough to make most change-ups pointless, but if you jam the hit, it won’t go far.”

To say the anger on Shirabu’s face surprised Semi was a gross understatement. For almost two months now he’d seen nothing but impassable neutrality on his face aside from quick flashes of irritation or annoyance (and usually with Kawanishi), so to see something close to a bonafide _snarl_ left him a little taken aback as Shirabu snapped, “If I wanted advice from a second-rate pitcher, I’d ask for it. Now _stop trying to give it_.”

His fists clenched reflexively as Shirabu peeled off his glove. “Watch your mouth talking to a senior,” he replied, tone even but lower than normal.

“Being my senior doesn’t give you a right to nitpick everything I say and do, _Semi-san_ ,” Shirabu said back, trying to push past Semi. “Move out of my way.”

“No.” Semi felt his blood boil. “I’m just trying to _help you_ for the sake of the team.”

“That’s funny, because I don’t remember Akamatsu-san dying and making you captain, but I guess since you care _so much_ about the well-being of the _team_ , I should just listen to whatever you have to say, right?” The two-inch difference in height between them was negligible on the best of days, but with Shirabu right in his face like that it was infinitesimal. “ _Fuck_ you.” He put a hand flat on Semi’s chest and pushed him out of the way, and suddenly Semi was a troubled fifteen-year-old again.

> _“This is the_ third time _this week, Eita-kun,” said the school counselor, a young woman that deserved better than having to put up with delinquent shitheads like him. “You can’t keep picking fights with other students.”_
> 
> _“It’s not like I’m doing it for fun,” he replied, wiping at his still-bleeding split lip. “They deserved a good ass-beating.”_
> 
> _She sighed. “If you can’t manage to clean up your act, I’m going to be forced to ban you from the baseball team.”_
> 
> _The chair scraped against the floor as Semi stood up with a jolt. “You can’t do that! Baseball is my life, you can’t keep me from playing on the team! I need a scholarship to go to college!”_
> 
> _“You’re not giving me much of a choice in the matter,” she said, jotting down a note in his school file. “This is your last warning, Eita-kun. You need to pull yourself together or you’re going to be banned from participating in sports.”_

He reached out and grabbed Shirabu’s shoulder to turn him around as Shirabu walked away. “I wasn’t done talking to you.”

Shirabu smacked Semi’s hand away with the back of his own. “Don’t _ever_ touch me again.”

“Didn’t I _just_ tell you to watch your mouth when talking to a senior?” This asshole was _seriously_ trying his patience, which was worn thin already by pure nature. Shirabu’s nose wrinkled up and Semi set his mouth into a deeper frown. “Show some respect.”

“Being my senior doesn’t give you the right to _micromanage_ everything I do,” Shirabu replied. “I earned my spot on this team and you being _bitter_ about it isn’t going to change that. So I would appreciate it if you just left me alone and minded your own business.”

And that was the final straw.

* * *

The bruise on his jaw hurt almost as much as the throbbing on the back of his head where Washijou had given him and Shirabu matching smacks. Having his entire head hurt front and back was an exceptionally terrible experience which was made even worse by knowing Shirabu wasn’t suffering from the same pain, thanks to Ushijima intervening just long enough for Tendou to drag Semi away from the situation before he exacerbated it.

Even though the door to the faculty office was closed, Semi could hear everything Washijou was screaming about to Saitou with near-perfect clarity as he and Shirabu stood outside with their hands behind their backs, facing forward and pointedly avoiding looking at each other. To say Washijou was unhappy with two of his best pitchers having a physical fight was putting it mildly; he was beside himself with anger, which said a lot considering he wasn’t a carefree person to begin with. He fully expected to get kicked off the team and wouldn’t even argue with it. At this point he deserved it, really.

Truthfully, in any other situation he would have swallowed his pride and apologized by now, but he was tired of playing the part of the bigger person when it came to Shirabu. He had nothing to say, so he said nothing and let the silence hang between them until Washijou slid the door open, looked at both of them, and said, “Get in here.”

He could already tell this was going to be the chew-out of his life.

“ _Never_ in all my years coaching,” Washijou started, oddly calm after the ear-splitting yelling he was doing earlier, “have I _ever_ had two of my players start a fight with each other during practice. I ain’t gonna stand here and give you the big disappointment speech, but I trust you know that I expect better of you.” He looked at Semi. “I thought we had a discussion last year about you learning how to check your _goddamn_ temper.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have you?”

Semi inhaled deeply before exhaling slowly through his nose. “Always trying to, sir.”

“Then start trying harder. And you.” He turned to look at Shirabu. “What the _hell_ were you thinking? I had high hopes for you but here you are, acting a damn fool over nothing. I’ve got every right to kick the both of you off this team for good.” Shirabu stiffened and Semi did some quick mental math of how much he would have to charge per night as a hooker to afford tuition without his scholarship. “But I won’t.”

Shirabu let go of the breath he’d been holding and Semi stopped trying to carry the one.

Saitou finally piped up. “As punishment for your actions, the two of you will be taking over all managerial duties from now through regionals. That means you both will be showing up early to set up, staying late to clean up, and learning how to work together to do so. I’m sure Miss Yang and Miss Matsuura will appreciate the break.” It didn’t sound all that bad. “You’re also banned from practicing until regionals. I hope you boys enjoy running laps.” Nope, this definitely sucked. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal, sir,” Semi replied, and Shirabu nodded wordlessly.

“Good. You two can start now by putting everything from today’s practice back in the equipment shed and organizing it.”

* * *

> [ Group Message ]
> 
> **semisemi:** in a fantastic display of douchebaggery, i have kissed my baseball career goodbye   
>  **ushijima.wakatoshi** shared a link:  “Top 10 Careers for College Dropouts”   
>  **semisemi:** wow   
>  **kamigata:** savage


	6. Lizzie Biddle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [Fat Bottomed Girls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iBgt2OmfQ) by Queen

Semi’s programming teacher was in the middle of explaining their next individual project (a simple coded video game with certain parameters it had to meet) when the door opened and a woman Semi had seen once before arguing with the east campus’ vending machine walked in.

“Pardon my interruption,” she said to the teacher, then turned and faced the class. “Who wants a job?” Immediately, Semi’s hand shot up into the air almost a full second before anyone else’s, and she pointed at him. “You start Monday.”

Fucking _score_.

* * *

> [ New message to user **kenjirou** ]
> 
> **semisemi:** we’re meeting at 6:45 at the equipment shed  
>  **semisemi:** don’t be late
> 
> **semisemi:** you there?  
>  **semisemi:** answering your messages is kind of nice  
>  **semisemi:** i know you hate me but we have a job to do
> 
> **semisemi:** seriously  
>  **kenjirou:** I was busy.  
>  **semisemi:** i hope it was important enough to ignore me  
>  **semisemi:** just be there on time  
>  **kenjirou:** Whatever.

* * *

If Semi thought Shirabu was tough to palate during normal business hours, Shirabu before store opening was even worse. He had a permanent scowl etched onto his face and the giant cup of coffee (if you could still call it that, with all the sugar and cream he’d thrown into it that made it closer to pale than any kind of light brown) in his hand didn’t seem to be doing much for his mood. He regarded Semi with a look of general distaste, and Semi almost got offended before he remembered he was standing there leaning against the equipment shed and smoking. Still, he rolled his eyes as he put out the cigarette and tossed it into the nearby ashtray attached to the trash can.

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” he grumbled, and Shirabu took a giant swig of his coffee.

“Don’t start with me,” Shirabu replied, still not quite fully awake. “Let’s just get this over with before we kill each other.”

He made a fair point, so Semi shrugged and unlocked the shed. If he and Shirabu had to spend time together from now until Koshien, they might as well do it while being mostly civil. The only real downside to being stuck with managerial duties (despite, you know, everything about being stuck with them and unable to join practice with the team) was that neither of them really had any clue what they were supposed to be doing; luckily, however, Yang was an angel that left them a list of daily duties taped to the inside of the door.

> _Good morning, idiots!_

He seconded Tendou’s sentiments about wanting to marry her.

> _Since you royally fucked up, now you’re stuck with manager duties. Thing is, you guys don’t know what you’re doing, so I figured I might as well use all~ my~ new~ free-time~ to write you guys a basic list of what has to get done._
> 
> _As a manager, your main job is to make sure the players are taken care of. That means getting here on time to set up! Shizu-chan and I usually get here at about 7 to make sure we get everything organized and put out in time for practice to start at 8. But that’s the easy part._

The rest of the note listed out everything that needed to get done, including refreshments for the players during their breaks. Yang had thrown them a bone by leaving them a veritable stockpile of onigiri in the faculty office’s refrigerator, but her note warned that from then on they’d have to provide their own food.

Shirabu looked at the note and raised an eyebrow. “We have to _cook_? I can’t cook.”

“You can’t cook?” Semi replied, unable to hide the grin in his voice. Of course Shirabu couldn’t cook, he was a spoiled little rich boy who never had to do anything for himself in his life. It would have been more surprising if he _could_ cook.

He expected the daggered look Shirabu shot him. “So what if I can’t cook? I’ll just get something catered.”

“I think that defeats the purpose of us having to _work together_.”

“Then I’ll put your name on the order when I pay for it.”

“Okay, you’re really not listening.” Sighing, he taped the note back up to the inside of the door and turned around to survey their joint new kingdom. Yang and Matsuura kept the shed impeccable, not a thing out of place. All the gloves were lined up perfectly as were the bats, and the buckets of balls were pushed off into a corner to save space. “Anyway, we can worry about what to do for food for tomorrow later on today. We have to get everything out to the field.”

And so they got to work on dragging all the equipment out to the field, arguing the whole way about what should go where and how and _no I don’t want it there_ and _I don’t care what you want, this is the best place to put it_. The rest of the team started making their way to the field at about quarter-til eight o’clock, including Matsuura and Yang, the latter of whom looked positively refreshed and had even bothered to do her makeup.

“Morning!” she said, singsong. She put her hands on her hips and looked out at the equipment on the field. “Wow, I’m impressed! I thought for sure we’d get here in the morning to find one of you eviscerated.”

“We can be civil,” said Shirabu, crossing his arms.

“Oh, there was no doubt about that. The question was whether or not you _would_ be.”

Semi snorted and Shirabu crossed his arms harder, _hmph_ ing and saying nothing else. Yang grinned and pulled Shirabu’s hat off to ruffle his hair which only proceeded to offend him more, and she laughed as he tried to fix his hair and pulled his hat back on.

“In all seriousness, you guys did a good job setting up,” she continued. “If you guys can prove to Washijou-san that you can work together, he might lighten up your sentence. That’s a big if though. If the two of you get into another fight there’s a good chance he might just kick you off the team.”

As if on cue, Washijou came onto the field with Saitou, and the team scrambled into their usual morning lineup to get the day started. After they received their daily briefing from the coaches, they split off into fielders and pitchers again, with Semi and Shirabu getting started on their previously assigned laps. There was no need for them to run fast, considering they’d be doing it most of the day, so they kept an even pace as they ran around the field.

Usually, Semi ran laps with Tendou, because nine times out of ten they were both complicit in pissing Washijou off. It was less painful with Tendou because the two of them chatted the whole time; with Shirabu, though, it was still tense and awkward, and it certainly didn’t help that Shirabu probably hated his guts for being a factor in getting both of them stuck on manager duty. Still, they kept pace with each other despite the silence, and Semi went over several different conversation topics in his head before vetoing each one and letting the silence linger.

Eventually, it was too boring, so he pursed his lips and said, “You have a mean right hook.”

Shirabu said nothing.

Semi wanted to punch himself in the face.

They continued running for another five or ten or fifteen minutes — the passage of time was nebulous at best when all you were doing was jogging around in an endless circle — before Semi took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know why you hate me, but I’m sorry for whatever I did.”

Shirabu’s answer, while quiet, was still an answer. “I don’t hate you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

He didn’t elaborate any more than that, and strangely, Semi didn’t feel the need to press him for more information. If nothing else, they’d at least established that whatever was between them wasn’t simple hatred.

Regardless, it was just the first of many days of working together, so it was a good start.

* * *

> [ New message from user **s.shivaji** ]
> 
> [ User not in contacts. Accept? ]
> 
> **s.shivaji:** Eita-kun, this is Sangeetha. You’ll be working for me.  
>  **s.shivaji:** It occurred to me that you probably needed details.  
>  **s.shivaji:** I work for the research department at the school  
>  **s.shivaji:** This involves running the department website as well as the social media accounts.  
>  **s.shivaji:** Unfortunately, the website is… lacking.  
>  **s.shivaji:** I was hoping a programming student could do a better job fixing it up than who I have on it right now.  
>  **s.shivaji:** I look forward to seeing you on Monday.

* * *

“And last but not least, this is your desk,” said Sangeetha, finishing the tour of the office. “It’s not much, but you’re welcome to decorate it however you’d like.”

True to her word, there wasn’t much to the desk besides a desktop computer and a lamp, but it would have to do. He’d find some pictures to put up to make it a little less bland and maybe a duck or two and it’d feel like he was right at home. He motioned at the chair. “Do you mind?”

“No, go right ahead,” Sangeetha replied, and Semi sat down before turning on the computer. “I wanted to show you what you’ll be working with anyway.” She leaned around him and opened the internet browser, typing in the address to the department’s website and hitting enter.

It was a dubious couple of seconds before it loaded, and Semi choked on his own spit.

Sangeetha seemed to understand his reaction. “Exactly.”

In layman’s terms, the website looked like absolute shit. There were badly sized images on the goddamn front page, which was _nothing_ compared to the rest of the site. Spaces where spaces shouldn’t be, typos everywhere, _images in the article body_ — Semi was going to have a stroke if he looked at it any longer. Unfortunately, this was now his job to fix, and he was determined to make it as beautiful as possible and maybe kill whomever had fucked it up this badly.

“I can work with this,” he said, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. “It’ll take a lot of work, but I can fix it.”

“Thank god,” Sangeetha said, exhaling with relief. “As far as pay goes, you’re _technically_ hired as an intern, which means you’re capped at twenty hours a week. I know you mentioned that you’re on the school baseball team.”

“Yes ma’am. Once summer vacation starts, I’ll be busy all day almost every day.”

She waved a hand. “That’s fine. The website actually logs the time whenever someone accesses the code and since you’ll be signed in on your own account, I can always track how much work you’ve done. You’re welcome to do more than your allotted twenty hours, but I can’t legally pay you for it. The only stipulation is you have to come into the office to work at least one day a week.”

“That’s fair. How does Friday work?”

“Friday is perfect. I’ll leave you to your work, then.” She headed back to her own office and left Semi to his own devices.

He tried not to throw up again when he looked back at the website.

Okay, so it wasn’t _that_ bad, but it was pretty fucking bad. He perused the articles on it until he noticed a pattern: almost every single article that had something egregiously wrong with it was written by the same person. A one Lizzie Biddle seemed to make her rounds on the website more often than anyone else, and Semi wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt in this situation due to her clearly being an international student who maybe didn’t have a full grasp of Japanese.

In any case, he wanted to at least discuss it with her. The site’s staff page had a blurb about her but no picture, and no way to really contact her outside of email, which wouldn’t be enough to fix the heinous problems she was causing on the website. He picked up his desk phone and called Sangeetha’s office to ask for her address so he could go and talk to her, and Sangeetha gave it to him. He’d go after work, but for now he had to get started on fixing the mess in front of him.

Four hours later, he clocked out and pulled the piece of paper he’d written Lizzie Biddle’s address on out of his pocket and started his walk across campus toward the apartment-style dorms the international and graduate studies students lived in. It wasn’t a long walk, and after asking the bored-looking girl at the front desk where the particular suite he was looking for was, he headed toward the elevator.

The suite was about halfway down the hall, and Semi straightened himself out before knocking on the door.

“Hold on, I’m coming!” came a voice from inside, and the door opened to a girl of average height with long, dark curly hair pulled back into a ponytail with a small part left out in the front to serve as bangs that had been flat-ironed straight. “Hey,” she said, smoothing back her already perfect hair. “Can I help you?”

Semi looked at her up and down and barely managed to tear his eyes away from her dangerously low tanktop. “Uh… Lizzie Biddle?”

The girl snorted. “ _God_ , no. The Biddler is my suitemate. I’m Rosie. Rosie Gonzalez. You’re looking for Lizzie?”

“Yeah, I just started working for Sangeetha and I wanted to talk to her about the website.”

“Sorry to say, but she’s gone all this week on some kind of class trip for her major.” Well, shit. “She’ll be back on Saturday if you wanted to talk to her then. You can come in anyway, though! Just kind of excuse the mess. I’m a little excited to have the living room to myself for a week.”

She opened the door fully and stepped to the side to let Semi in. True to Rosie’s word, the living room was a bit messy, but it wasn’t messy enough to make it uninhabitable. She told him to take a seat on the couch as she kicked a stray pair of shoes under the table and headed to the kitchen to get him something to drink. He took the time to admire the scenery: it was a cute little apartment that didn’t seem terribly decorated — possibly due to clashing tastes — with nothing really personally identifying like pictures. He didn’t know anything about Lizzie Biddle aside from her frankly piss poor writing skills, but Rosie seemed nice enough.

A couple minutes later she came back into the living room carrying two bottles of soda and handed one to him. “Sorry all we had left was root beer and the red Fanta,” she said, handing him one of the bottles. He looked at it. It was brown. “I know most people here don’t drink root beer so I figured I’d take that bullet for you.”

“Thanks,” he replied, happy to not have to drink the beverage equivalent of cough syrup.

Rosie settled into the couch next to him, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her sweatpants. “So,” she started, tapping her fingers on her legs, “do you write articles for the website too?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’m here to make the website more functional. It’s what I’m majoring in anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

“You’re a computer science major? That’s pretty awesome.” She leaned on her arm and her tanktop slipped down just a bit. A stronger man than Semi could have not looked but he was nineteen and too bisexual for this. “I’m majoring in analytical chemistry.”

That was it.

He was done.

It was time to throw in the towel.

“That’s hot,” is all he managed to muster, and the deal was sealed.

* * *

One in the morning was an asshole time to come home no matter your living situation, but was particularly douchey when you shared one small space with another person. Thankfully, Morishima was still awake playing a video game on his bed, but it didn’t stop him from commenting on Semi’s absence, which he immediately lied about.

Morishima looked up from his game console and said, deadpan, “You were with Tendou.”

“Absolutely,” Semi said in reply, and tried believing himself.

“Why do you have a pair of lace panties sticking out of your shirt pocket then?” God dammit, Rosie. “Just spend the night next time, dude.”

Semi pulled the underwear out of his pocket and tossed it onto his laundry pile, making a mental note to return it to Rosie the next time he saw her and try not to take home another pair. “I’ve got class at nine. I can’t afford to miss it.”

“That’s fair. G’night then.”

“Don’t stay up all night playing video games.”

“Sure thing, mom.”

“Fuck off.”

* * *

> [ New message to user  **gonzo** ]
> 
> **semisemi:** thanks for the panties i guess   
>  **gonzo:** (˵¯͒ v ¯͒˵)

* * *

Washijou blew his whistle and gathered everyone up. He put his hands on his hips and looked more serious than usual. “Listen up, everyone! Regionals starts soon and we’ve yet to land a practice game with the biggest threat to our Koshien run. It’s understandable, as I’m sure they’re busy preparing for the regional tournament just like we are. But I have some good news. Semi!”

“Yes, sir!” Semi replied.

“I’m lifting your practice ban early.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“The rest of the news pertains to the rest of you,” Washijou continued. “Saitou and I managed to get in contact with their coach and agree upon a time and date for a practice match. It’s been several weeks coming but it’s finally here. Second string, you’ll be the ones playing this game as usual.”

The team tittered with excitement among themselves and Tendou gave Semi a low high-five.

“I expect nothing but the best out of you,” said Washijou. “Next Saturday at three, we’re playing Seijou.”


	7. Man Versus Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Shiratorizawa versus Seijou in the final practice game before the summer regional tournament starts, and a couple familiar faces join the fray...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: [Burning Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UKWVEkZCrk) by Survivor
> 
> pls gently try to ignore that this is like three months late........ shit's been rough and y'all deserve something better but this garbage is all i have to offer. SOON, THOUGH. we will have good things. stay w me

Tendou pulled an earbud out of Semi’s ear and put it into his own. “Are you seriously just sitting here listening to the _Rocky_ soundtrack?” he asked, giving Semi the earbud back. “Shouldn’t you be stretching, or warming up, or something? We’re about to play a game.”

“I’m centering myself.”

“You’re listening to the _Rocky_ soundtrack.”

“I can multitask.”

Rolling his eyes, Tendou sat down on the dugout bench next to him and pulled his legs up into a cross-legged position, grabbing onto his knees and rocking back and forth. “Is it true Coach is gonna play you the whole game, no relief?”

Semi nodded. “I’m pretty sure he just wants to see if I can manage going an entire game without being an ass and ignoring calls.”

“And can you?”

He shrugged. “We’ll see. In any case, it’s just a practice match. We’re not playing our best players and they’re not playing theirs, so it doesn’t really matter in the long run.”

Tendou hummed, then looked over at Semi before looking forward again and humming louder. “Are you _suuuure_ it’s not just because we’re playing Seijou that you’re being extra salty today?” Semi ignored him and he leaned over until he fell onto Semi’s shoulder, looking up at him with big eyes that betrayed his fake innocence. “It has nothing to do with you still being mad that Oikawa struck you out last year?”

“I wasn’t _mad_ ,” Semi replied, doing nothing to push Tendou off of his shoulder. “It’s normal to get upset at being struck out.”

“You were at a Code Orange on the Eita Homicide Watch Scale. It was concerning.”

“What the hell is a Code Orange?”

Tendou lifted a hand and started listing them off on his fingers. “Well, Code Green means that you’re in a good mood. Code Yellow is when you’re starting to get pissed off but not enough to punch someone yet. Code Orange is when you’re ready to punch someone. Code Red is when you’ve already punched someone. And Code Black is when I have to testify on your behalf in court.” He nodded sagely. “You spend most of your time between Green and Yellow.”

Every response Semi tried to formulate died on his tongue, leaving him with nothing but, “God, you’re so weird,” to say. But Tendou wasn’t really wrong; nobody _enjoyed_ getting struck out, least of all Semi, but there was something different about the whole thing when he had Oikawa’s smug face as the umpire called the third strike stuck in his mind. It _certainly_ didn’t help that he’d spent an entire year at that point trying to live up to whatever Ushijima saw in Oikawa that made him want them to be on the same team so much.

Eventually, he’d decided it wasn’t worth trying to be something he wasn’t, and that was when he promptly stopped giving a shit.

(In retrospect, that had probably led to him getting benched by Washijou, but whatever.)

Seijou as a team was incredibly skilled and deserved every ounce of respect they had fought for from every other team in Miyagi. For the last few years, Seijou had been fighting to get back to the Koshien stage after too many chances gone by, but the real rivalry between them hadn’t started until last year when Oikawa and Ushijima joined their respective teams. The moment both of them met up for a practice match both coaches could tell there was something _different_ about their teams, and both of them decided it was for the best.

It didn’t surprise Semi in the least that Oikawa had made first string again this year, judging by his absence in the other dugout; instead, it seemed that Irihata had assigned a first year battery to start on second string. In all honesty, Semi really didn’t know anything about Seijou’s second string, in part due to the knowledge being unnecessary and also due to him being an arrogant asshat who thought he had a shoe-in to get back on first string, where anyone worth playing would be. He felt like a dick.

He was kind of getting tired of feeling like a dick so often lately.

Any underclassman of Oikawa’s was bound to be a good pitcher, though, so he didn’t want to count them out due to being unknown variables. There was no doubt that Iwaizumi had at least _tried_ to take the catcher under his wing, but going by the blond’s permanent scowl he might not have been entirely successful.

Tendou’s voice knocked him out of his own head. “Do you think Oikawa is gonna be here to watch us grind his precious juniors into dust?”

Semi just grinned. Nobody understood him like Tendou.

* * *

 Seeing a crowd for a Shiratorizawa game wasn’t a rare sight. It wasn’t nearly the size of the crowd Shirabu had battled during the regional finals of last year, but it was a decent crowd for just a practice game. He took his seat next to Ushijima and put one foot up on the back of the seat the row in front of him, pulling out his phone and scrolling through his news feed while he waited for the game to start.

In his opinion, going to a second string game was a supreme waste of everyone’s time. Not only was it only a practice game, but the important players (him and Ushijima)(and the rest of first string, he supposed) weren’t even playing. They were spending precious time they _could_ have been using to formulate a plan for Koshien or, god forbid, _practice_ doing something useless.

“Honestly, Kenjirou, you’re so petty,” chimed a familiar voice from behind him before a well-manicured hand chopped him on top of his head. He swore quietly and leaned his head back to see Konoe (upside-down because of the angle) looking down at him with her hands on her hips. If Shirabu had to put a name to her expression, it was something close to ‘fond annoyance.’ “Take a day off from being an obsessive dumbass and support your teammates. Isn’t Taicchi starting today, anyway?”

He turned in his seat and pulled one leg up onto the seat next to him, rubbing the top of his head. “Taichi is a grown man who can support himself,” he replied, not bothering to hide how haughty he sounded. Konoe rolled her eyes and took the seat directly behind Shirabu, crossing her legs at the ankles and letting the toe of her pumps knock into the back of his seat. “What are you even doing here? Didn’t you have plans?”

“Miki isn’t back from her honeymoon yet so I had to reschedule. I thought it would be fun to come watch your team play.” She flipped a curl over her shoulder. “Besides, you haven’t even introduced me to your teammates yet. Kiyo-chan is the only one who had the decency to come say hi when I visited you at practice.”

“She was _blatantly_ hitting on you.”

“I know. It was flattering.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I try. Now introduce me!”

“God, fine!” Shirabu replied, standing up and facing Konoe with a hand extended to help her climb over the row of seats. Like everything else she did, she grabbed his hand and stepped over the seat in front of her with immeasurable poise and grace, her heels clicking on the cement when she landed. “This is Ushijima-san,” he said, gesturing next to him. “He’s the only one who really matters. There, you’ve been introduced.”

He sat back down with a huff and crossed his arms, and Konoe looked at Ushijima. “Is he always this much of a dick?”

“Not always,” Ushijima replied, and Shirabu had the chance to look smug for half a second before Ushijima continued with, “Sometimes he’s worse.”

Konoe laughed and sat down next to Shirabu, continuing the conversation with Ushijima across Shirabu while he crossed his arms tighter and sunk into the back of the seat. Even if he would rather die a terrible death than admit it out loud, he was glad that they were getting along at least. And, frankly, he knew Konoe had better things to do than come watch a practice game he wasn’t even in, whether she had an excuse for it or not.

She chatted animatedly with Ushijima for a good few minutes about anything and everything (“Did you read the latest article by Forbes about how to properly play the stock market for maximum gain?” “I did! It was a really interesting read, we should talk about it sometime over lunch!”), and the two exchanged numbers right before the umpire blew the whistle asking for both acting team captains to meet him at the mound.

The acting captain for Seijou’s second string was Junichi Kasai, a bleached blond and easily frazzled young man that was more of a danger on the field than he was off it. Washijou must have still retained something close to a sense of humor long thought dead, because he assigned Tendou to be the captain for the game, and Kasai’s discomfort showed heavily when Tendou (already towering over him) leaned in far too close to be socially acceptable during their handshake and grinned at him.

Tendou may have excelled on first base, but his true calling was giving people a massive case of the heebie jeebies.

“Is he always like that?” Konoe asked Shirabu as Tendou skipped gleefully back to the dugout and Kasai looked like he needed a heavy dose of Xanax.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“I like him.”

“You don’t even _know_ him.”

“And whose fault is that?” Fuck. She had him there. She must have known it, too, because she changed the subject to asking questions about the game itself.

Through all the years they had known each other, Konoe had never really had an interest in baseball, which Shirabu thought was fair considering he didn’t take too much interest in her photography, because they had an unspoken arrangement that it wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t sure why she was taking an interest in baseball _now_ , but he couldn’t stop her from showing up, and he figured it was at least reasonable for him to introduce her to his friends and teammates if nothing else.

The players took the field down below while Shirabu pointed out each position and what its specific role was on the field, Konoe nodding along as she listened. She leaned her shoulder against his and cocked her head to the side as she hummed and watched him gesture toward each base and spot on the field as he explained it, and for a moment it was… nice. It felt normal, him sitting there next to his fiancée like nothing was out of the ordinary.

His shoulder felt hot.

A voice over the loudspeakers rang out. “Batting, number 22, Kawanishi-kun.”

“Taicchi gets to bat first?” Konoe asked.

Shirabu nodded. “Yeah. He’s the lead-off because he has a high on-base percentage.”

“So his job is to get on base for the next person to advance him.” Kawanishi lined up his stance in the batter’s box as the pitcher — some freshman named Yahaba, from what Shirabu remembered — wound up to throw the first pitch of the game. It ended up being a medium-speed fastball just outside the strike zone, and Kawanishi chose not to swing at it. The umpire ruled it a ball, and the catcher stood up and threw the ball back to Yahaba with as much force as he could muster. “Oh. He seems pissed.”

Clicking his tongue, Shirabu replied, “It doesn’t look like their pitcher and catcher know how to work together yet. I watched the pitcher shrug off three calls before he threw.”

“Give it enough time and they’ll be a perfectly formidable battery!” boasted a voice behind them, followed by the sound of a smack and a high-pitched, “Ow!”

Konoe, Shirabu, Ushijima, and even Oohira turned in their seats to see an overly familiar face rubbing the back of his head and glaring at another familiar face as they took the seats behind them. Iwaizumi immediately crossed his arms over his chest and propped a foot up on the back of the seat in front of him (the empty one next to Konoe, because his _mamá_ didn’t raise a brute, no matter how much Oikawa insisted she did), club jacket open over a white t-shirt. “Don’t be such an entitled dumbass, Oikawa,” he muttered, then jerked his chin up at Ushijima in greeting. “Hey, long time no see.”

“Knowing how to treat a _rival_ is not being _entitled_ , Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said matter-of-factly, crossing his legs. “Stop being so friendly with Ushiwaka-chan, it’s weird.”

“Holding onto a petty high school grudge is the thing that’s weird. Anyway, he says hi too, even if he won’t admit it.” He thumbed at Oikawa. “We’re supposed to be sitting with the rest of the team, but this idiot _insisted_ on finding out where you were sitting just so he could sit with you.”

“I did not!” Oikawa said, then continued with, “I just wanted to see his face when he saw a glimpse of the future of the Seijou-Shiratorizawa rivalry.”

“Your second string battery?” Ushijima asked for clarity, and Iwaizumi nodded.

“They’re rough around the edges, but they’re pretty promising. If they could figure out how to work with each other.”

“Batting, number 26, Suou-kun.”

“Considering working together is a key part of actually _being_ a battery, I would hope they figure it out soon,” Shirabu said coldly. Oikawa’s mouth set in a straight line and Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow, half-amused and half-impressed at how cocky a freshman could be. “Victory due to incompetence on the part of your opponent isn’t much of a victory at all.”

Oikawa leaned forward in his seat and put on a sly smile. “Big words coming from a newbie. I hope you have the skills to back that bravado up.”

Konoe put her hand on Shirabu’s arm and effectively shut the conversation down, just in time for the tinny voice on the field loudspeakers to call out the third batter for Shiratorizawa.

“Batting, number 19, Semi-kun.”

* * *

> [ New message from user **yoshi** ]
> 
> **yoshi:** so i know you’re busy doing   
>  **yoshi:** sports   
>  **yoshi:** but i’m freaking out here   
>  **yoshi:** i think your dumb ducks are multiplying   
>  **yoshi:** i could just be going crazy but i’m pretty sure i see a new one   
>  **yoshi:** needless to say this is probably the last thing i need right now   
>  **yoshi:** have you always had nine? i don’t think you’ve always had nine   
>  **yoshi:** one of them keeps staring at me   
>  **yoshi:** i feel unsafe

* * *

Semi tapped the bat against the bottom of his cleat and swung it up onto his shoulder before settling into position. The catcher, a rather angry-looking fellow named Kyoutani, shifted slightly behind him, and Semi blew and popped a bubble.

On the mound, Yahaba shook his head, then waited for another call before rejecting it as well. Kyoutani growled quietly behind Semi and threw another call, that also got rejected by Yahaba. Eventually, Yahaba must have agreed on something, because he nodded and wound up for a pitch before sending a rather impressive curveball Semi’s direction. It caught the edge of his bat and went foul.

Another round of rejected calls, and Yahaba threw another ball that came dangerously close to Semi’s chest but skimmed the edge of the outside of the strike zone and was ruled a ball by the umpire at the plate.

Yahaba looked annoyed that Semi didn’t so much as flinch, and Semi blew another bubble.

One rejected call. Then another. And another. And another. And another.

And then Kyoutani stood up behind Semi, ripped off his face mask, and yelled, “Would you just _throw a fucking pitch_ already?!”

Semi whistled under his breath.

* * *

> **yoshi:** TWELVE   
>  **yoshi:** I COUNTED TWELVE DUCKS   
>  **yoshi:** WHEN DID YOU GET TWELVE FUCKING DUCKS EITA   
>  **yoshi:** LAST TIME I ASKED YOU SAID YOU HAD SIX   
>  **yoshi:** I KNOW YOU’RE SHIT AT MATH BUT TWELVE IS NOT THE SAME AS SIX   
>  **yoshi:** I’M BUGGING DUDE   
>  **yoshi:** one of these ducks is gonna assassinate me in my sleep and then slip out in the cover of darkness   
>  **yoshi:** never to be seen again   
>  **yoshi:** i’m too young to suffer death by rubber duck

* * *

“That was a pretty nasty beating,” Konoe said, arm hooked through Shirabu’s as they walked behind the rest of the team, waiting to meet up with the second string players still finishing their meeting with Washijou after the game. “I didn’t know they even _had_ a mercy rule. Semi-san’s an amazing pitcher.”

Shirabu rolled his eyes. “He’s not _awful_ but he’s unnecessarily flashy. 150 km/hr fastballs don’t impress anyone much anymore, they’re just obnoxious to try to hit. There’s no real technique to it.”

“Someone sounds bitter.”

“I’m not _bitter_ ,” he said bitterly. “I just don’t appreciate ostentatious show-offs who can barely pull themselves out of their own egos for long enough to listen to someone else. It’s a miracle he even took any of Matsui’s calls into consideration, especially after how he acted last year against Johzenji.”

“You know, _you_ used to be flashy like that too.” Shirabu’s feet stuttered momentarily before he regained his cadence. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that part of the reason you’re so annoyed by Semi-san is because he reminds you of yourself?”

It was a preposterous idea, really. If anything, the fact that Shirabu had _learned_ from his mistakes of the past and become a better pitcher and team member because of it set them apart more than it made them similar. Still, preposterous or not, it wasn’t entirely _untrue_ , and Shirabu knew it with every ounce of denial in his body.

To say he didn’t respect Semi would be a lie, because he was raised with manners and always respected his seniors, but beyond that he had no real desire to do much of _anything_ with Semi. Sure, they were teammates, and rivals for the same position, and because of that rivalry also became forced partners in management, but they didn’t have to be friends; besides, it was pretty fucking clear that Semi had no interest in being friends with him either. So they could agree to disagree and call it a day.

But it aggravated him beyond words that Semi had the audacity to have so much pride and be left unchecked with it. He knew all too well that Semi had been an all-star pitcher in high school and was sought by several professional teams before he decided to pursue higher education on a scholarship instead. For as much as Ushijima ended up in national youth sports magazines, Semi was right behind him in exposure, having made a name for himself throughout the Miyagi prefecture and even amassing a reputation in the neighboring prefectures. It had always been Shirabu’s dream to go to the same university as Ushijima and form a battery with him, but truthfully, he’d also gone to last year’s regionals game against Johzenji to feel out Semi as well.

He wasn’t impressed by the egotistical performance he’d been given.

“There’s a difference between being skilled and being a blowhard,” he replied after a moment.

“Oh, hello, Pot! Meet Kettle. He’s black.”

“You know what, I don’t need this from you. I get enough shit from Taichi.”

“Yes, yes, run away from the truth. Classic Kenjirou.” The second string players started to file out of the field area toward the rest of the team, and Konoe gave Shirabu a knowing, if not a bit cheeky, smile. “You’ve never changed and you never will. Always so stupid. Anyway, your coach probably wants to talk to all of you, so I’m gonna head back to the apartment. See you soon?”

He kissed her quickly and said, “Yeah. I’ll pick up dinner.”

“Good. You know what I like!” She waved goodbye as she walked, and he found himself waving back with the hint of a small smile gracing his lips.

It was a better afternoon than he’d expected.

* * *

> **semisemi:** are you mixing red bull and coffee again   
>  **yoshi:** so what if i am   
>  **yoshi:** that’s a different topic entirely   
>  **semisemi:** is it really, though?   
>  **yoshi:** first of all, fuck you   
>  **yoshi:** anyway, i took a nap and i feel less paranoid now   
>  **yoshi:** you still have twelve ducks   
>  **semisemi:** i only have six   
>  **yoshi:** let me have one moment of peace in my life please


	8. Take Me Out to the Ballgame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for regionals!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter songs: [Blitzkrieg Bop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nYXTsbwsxA) by The Ramones and [It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aJA7Pi-1uk) by Starship
> 
> it is very important for you to know that [this is playing in the background](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lSP8Vc3o) every single time yang is on screen. because she is. she so is
> 
> marry me yang

[ Group Message ]

 **satorin:** ↑_(ΦwΦ;)Ψ  
**satorin:** @everyone

_Several people are typing…_

**semisemi:** satori you oblique fuck

* * *

**JUNE, MIDDLE**

The grin on Tendou’s face didn’t falter even a millimeter as Shirabu forced his way between Semi, Tendou, and Ushijima; violently shoved some coins into the vending machine; and quite literally punched it to get it to dispense a box of strawberry milk. To complete the absurdity, he angrily stuffed the straw into the box and took a long sip, which only succeeded in him looking like a child throwing a tantrum. Semi snorted and Shirabu flipped him off with his free hand.

“That’s no way to treat your elders,” Tendou said in a mock-chastising voice, and Shirabu moved the fabulous bird toward Tendou. “Yikes, someone’s not a morning person.”

“If your little _stunt_ in the group chat didn’t wake me up at _five in the morning_ on the _one day_ I was given _express permission_ to sleep in, I’d be a _lot_ more sociable,” Shirabu replied, finishing the milk and throwing the box away in the nearby trash can. “I ended up falling asleep again and woke up too late to do my hair.”

“You style your hair even when you wear a hat?” asked Ushijima.

Shirabu readjusted his hat by the bill and said, “Why are you making it sound like it’s unusual? So does Tendou-san,” jerking his thumb in Tendou’s direction.

Ushijima’s eyes slowly traveled from Shirabu to Tendou, then down to Tendou’s feet and back up to his face. His gaze lingered just a hair bit too long before he finally looked back at Shirabu and replied, with no hint of sarcasm, “I expect that out of him, though.”

There wasn’t much for Tendou to do other than throw his hands up incredulously as Semi pounded on the wall next to the vending machine while shaking with silent laughter. Sometimes he wished Ushijima’s sense of humor wasn’t so dry that even _he_ had trouble discerning whether or not he was serious, but at least it never failed to be entertaining, even if he was the butt of the joke.

“It has staying power,” is all he said in response before he lifted both his arms and wiggled his fingers mischievously. “But enough about me, what’s hiding under hat number one…!”

His hand got two inches away from the hat before Shirabu said, impassive as usual, “If you lay one finger on this hat, you’re gonna have to learn how to bat with no arms.”

Semi’s silent laughter finally gained its voice.

* * *

[ New Message to user **gonzo** ]

 **semisemi:** you coming to the game today?  
**gonzo:** i binge read the mlb rulebook last night so i might as well lol  
**gonzo:** plus it’s a nice day and i don’t have anything else to do  
**gonzo:** i’ll flag you down once i make it to the stadium  
**semisemi:** see you there then  
**gonzo:** oh you’ll see me alright

* * *

Kawanishi raised an eyebrow that spoke volumes as Shirabu tore open another bag of Cheetos mindlessly and shoved his hand into it. The broken carcasses of three other bags sat on the seat between them on the bus, which wasn’t anywhere near the record of ten he’d seen during a particularly dark time in their friendship, but considering it was right before a game he figured it warranted a healthy amount of concern.

“So,” he said as Shirabu stuffed a handful of Cheetos into his mouth, “you’re stressed out about this game, aren’t you?”

“I’m perfectly fine,”  Shirabu replied around the mouthful of manufactured cheese dust and regret he’d feel later. “I don’t know why you have to turn into my mother every time I’m hungry. Maybe I just wanted to eat Cheetos today.”

“You bought seven bags at the gas station and ate two at one time.”

Shirabu swallowed and said, “Try minding your own business, then.”

“Fine. Puke your guts out. See what I care.”

Shirabu rolled his eyes, and grabbed another handful. “I’m not gonna puke.”

* * *

 **semisemi:** we’re on the side of the road on the way to the stadium and our star pitcher is currently retching his fucking intestines out behind the bus  
**semisemi:** today’s gonna go wonderfully  
**gonzo:** take pics  
**semisemi:** what the fuck

* * *

“You good, buddy?” Kawanishi asked, hanging out the window as the retching stopped.

“Go fuck yourself,” Shirabu replied weakly, standing back up from being hunched over and wiping his mouth.

Kawanishi pulled himself back in and turned to face Washijou. “He’s good.”

* * *

 **gonzo** sent file **ootdphase1.png**

 **semisemi:** i am ON THE BUS  
**gonzo:** but the bra is cute right

* * *

By the time everyone came stumbling out of the bus at their final destination, Shirabu still looked faintly green despite claiming that he was fine as he immediately downed an entire water bottle and reached a hand out to Matsuura for another one. It was kind of funny, if not vaguely concerning.

Semi knew he had a petty streak, but the streak always ended when the well-being of the team came into the picture, and he could accept that Shirabu ‘won’ the race to first string for the tournament. To say it was surprising in the worst way to see the pièce de résistance of Shiratorizawa’s fielding prowess looking ready to fall over at any moment was a massive fucking understatement. He understood too well the pressure on one’s shoulders as a pitcher for regionals, but he’d hardly ever been stressed enough to throw up.

He picked up his pace to catch up with Shirabu as they walked toward the stadium. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked, giving him a nudge with his arm.

“For the last time, I’m _fine_ ,” Shirabu replied, taking a sip of the second water bottle he’d pawned off Matsuura. “I just ate too fast.”

“The entire team saw you _hurl your guts out_ on the side of the road after you demanded the driver stop immediately. We’re justifiably concerned. If you’re not feeling well just let Coach know and he can substitute someone in for you—”

Shirabu squinted his eyes at Semi and took another sip of water without breaking eye contact. “Sounds suspiciously like you trying to be sneaky.”

“That’s definitely not what’s going on,” Semi replied with a heavy sigh and half an eye-roll. “The roster was already given to the tournament organizers. What’s done is done, who’s on it is who’s on it, no substitutions. But we _do_ have more than one pitcher on first string. I’m just looking out for the good of the team. If you’re not up to playing, then it’s best for everyone if you _don’t_.”

The tension between them broke as Shirabu tore his gaze away from Semi and looked forward again. “I appreciate the concern, I guess,” he said after a long moment, and Semi felt his eyebrow twitch. “But I’m fine. Really.”

Semi swore he heard him mutter, “I already _have_ a mother,” under his breath but elected to ignore it. “Alright, if you say so. Just making sure. We’ve got an entire month of games ahead of us and if you’re gonna eat your weight in Cheetos and then barf it up every game we might have a problem.”

Silence, then: “I’m nervous, okay?”

“I— What?” Semi stuttered, stopping in his tracks as Shirabu stopped next to him and the rest of the team passed them by. He was _sure_ he heard him wrong, but the set of Shirabu’s eyebrows told him he heard exactly what he thought he heard and challenged him to make a smartass comment.

“I took my team to Koshien last year,” Shirabu continued, squeezing the water bottle with both hands and listening to it crinkle. “It was some tiny private school nobody had ever heard of in the circuit. I spent my first year overseas but second and third there.” Semi could do nothing but listen, perplexed that Shirabu was even offering this much information about himself, let alone to _him_. “Third year I became captain and ace and I took that team of nobodies all the way to the finals. And we lost.”

The admission hurt Semi more than it seemed to hurt Shirabu. He could imagine the frustration and the self-hatred Shirabu must have felt making it all that way only to fail at the very end because he’d been there. That was him last year when he got benched after Johzenji. That was him when the team lost the next game because they lost the pitcher they’d been relying on for the entire tournament. It was easy to blame the entire thing on himself at the time, and it was easy to lash out because of it. Washijou _himself_ had threatened to formally remove Semi from the team if he didn’t pull his ass back together.

Stranger, though, was that Semi had never really thought to look at Shirabu in this light before. Maybe it was just because everything about him was so _perfect_. He came in out of nowhere, not invited to the team by scholarship like everyone else, swooped in and became the first string starter like Semi had imagined _he’d_ be — like he _always_ had been, even back in high school — and could seemingly do no wrong. It was almost impossible to envision any kind of scenario where Shirabu could do something even the slightest bit wrong, let alone completely lose something.

He really didn’t know what to say. Should he validate Shirabu’s feelings? Should he try to connect with him over them? Should he just stand there like a fucking lemon and say nothing while Shirabu choked down his massive ego long enough to admit that he was scared of a repeat of last year just as much as Semi was scared of his own repeat deep down?

Perhaps Semi’s real failing in all of this was being unable, or unwilling, to perceive Shirabu as what he was: a fellow player. Just some shithead kid who wanted to taste glory and victory just like the rest of them.

Just like Semi.

He rubbed the back of his neck, keenly aware of the bright summer sun beating down on them. “Look, it’s—” he started, then stopped and tried to find the right words. Shirabu didn’t want to hear that it wasn’t his fault; honestly, that was neither here nor there and probably would only piss him off when they were busy making some actual progress in their relationship as teammates. “I get it. You’re— I mean, Koshien is— it’s a big stage. A lot of shit happens. It’s terrifying.”

Shirabu nodded. “As I said before, I appreciate your concern. But nothing is going to go wrong. I’m fine. Just a little nervous.” He hiked his bag higher up onto his shoulder. “We should probably go catch up to the rest of the team now.”

The rest of their walk was in silence, but Semi felt like he understood Shirabu a little more now.

Things were looking up.

* * *

Inside, the stadium was buzzing with life after the morning game, people talking animatedly about the way the game turned out and their expectations for the next one. It was hard not to get infected by the spirit of excitement rolling across the crowd as Yang dutifully led the players that weren’t playing toward a sizeable section directly across from the dugout the team would be using during the game. She took her seat next to Semi and stretched out her long legs, tilting her head back to catch some of the sun’s rays on her face with a contented smile.

“I swear nobody on this team is as excited by games as you are,” Semi said with half a smile as Yang took off her hat to shake out her hair before sitting back up and letting her bangs fall into her face.

“It makes me miss the field,” she replied, running a hand through her sweat-dampened hair to get it out of her face before putting her hat back on. “What I wouldn’t give to be one of the ones down there getting ready to play.”

“You know Coach would kill to have you on the team, right?”

“Alas, poor Yorick, rules are rules and must be obeyed, no matter if the team would definitely, and I am not just tooting my own horn here, benefit _greatly_ from having yours truly on it.” Semi snorted and Yang flashed him a cheesy grin. “I’m grateful that I’m at least allowed to be a manager and help out with practice. If that’s all I can do, I can at least do it the best that I can.”

“But we’re still acknowledging you were robbed.”

“Oh, of course. This was _highway robbery_ , Eita. I got beaned with a tire iron and left for dead.”

Yang’s laughter was infectious, clear and bright and unrepentantly _loud_ in a way that was normally frowned upon but somehow _worked_ for her. It was hard not to laugh along with her, even as she punched Semi in the arm playfully. Having her around was almost like having an older sister of sorts, someone to keep him in line but also offer him advice when he needed it.

Her phone dinged with a message alert and she pulled it out to look at it. “Ah, damn. My girl isn’t making it today. Apparently the drama club meeting got extended because they’re not where they should be as far as scheduling. Sucks.”

“The more I don’t get to meet her, the more I’m starting to think you made it all up,” Semi replied, cheeky.

“I don’t wanna hear anything from you, mister ‘she’s not my girlfriend, we only text all the time and hang out and sleep together but we’re totally not dating.’ You’re ridiculous.”

“Who’s ridiculous?” Semi looked up to see Rosie standing there wearing a Day-Glo orange shirt knotted at the bottom of her ribcage and a pair of low-sitting jean shorts with a comically large belt. As per usual, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but she’d bothered to blow-dry it out into looser curls rather than leaving it.

Fuck, she was _bright_. So that’s what she meant by him definitely _seeing_ her. What an ass.

“Your boyfriend is ridiculous,” Yang replied, thumbing at Semi.

Without missing a beat, Rosie said, “He’s not my boyfriend,” and the look Semi gave Yang was absurd enough to make her burst out laughing again.

* * *

[ New Message to user **yoshi** ]

 **semisemi:** 12-4 final  
**yoshi:** hey now you know the rules  
**yoshi:** no sportsball unless you listen to me rant about something  
**semisemi:** alright, what’s on the menu today  
**yoshi:** roman lesbians  
**semisemi:** oh hell yes

* * *

**JUNE, END**

Soekawa clenched his fist tightly as the ball Yamagata picked up and threw toward first landed safely in Tendou’s glove, signalling the end of the game. “That’s four victories so far,” he said, pulling out a small notebook he used to keep track of all the different teams they’d be playing in the tournament. “If we keep it up, clinching regionals shouldn’t be hard at all.”

“I mean, are you surprised?” Semi replied, standing up and stretching out his back. “We’re not exactly an underdog team. Minus a couple hiccups in the past, Shiratorizawa as a team has always been championship-level.”

“I’m not _surprised_ , per se. It’s just something to keep in the back of your mind. Anything can happen during a tournament, especially when there are so many unknown variables.” Soekawa flipped to an earlier page. “In all honesty, we’d probably have an even better shot if we had _you_ on the pitching roster.”

Before Soekawa could say anything else, Semi snatched the notebook from his hands and stuck it in his back pocket, looking down at Soekawa with nothing short of a disappointed frown. “We’ve been over this, Jin— stop discounting yourself as a pitcher _and_ as a player. You were invited to this team same as any of the rest of us, which means Coach saw something in you that he wanted on his team. You deserve a spot on first string just as much as anyone else.”

Being a fellow pitcher, Semi had naturally gravitated toward Soekawa during their first year, and there was a mutual understanding of respect for skill between them. Sure, Soekawa didn’t have a hand-breaking fastball like Semi did, but he _did_ have nearly unmatched control as well as good batting skills. And as much as Semi had _wanted_ to view him as competition, it was hard when Soekawa was just such a nice fucking guy. Hard on himself a lot, but a nice guy.

Lately, though, he’d been harder on himself than usual, and even Washijou had noticed. A sprained ankle had put him out of commission during the spring invitational, and while he was fully healed now it seemed like the feeling of uselessness still lingered with him. At this rate, Soekawa was going to self-deprecate himself into getting the yips.

“Give yourself more credit, man,” Semi continued, grabbing the notebook out of his pocket and handing it back to Soekawa. “And keep taking notes about everyone, it’s like having insider information. What color are our opponents’ underwear gonna be tomorrow?”

“You _know_ I don’t have that kind of information.”

* * *

[ New message to user  ]

 **semisemi:** finals are today  
**semisemi:** you coming?  
**:** sure id love to come watch u play  
**:** o rite  
**semisemi:** fuck you  
****: no incesto

* * *

**JULY**

Two outs, one on second.

Up by one, 0-1 count.

The mid-afternoon sun was unforgiving as it beat down onto the field, Shirabu using the sleeve of his compression shirt to wipe sweat away from his eyes before inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly.

Two outs, one on second.

Up by one, 1-1 count.

Their defeat of Seijou had been satisfying if not predicted, and Oikawa had pulled Shirabu aside specifically after the game concluded to talk to him one-on-one. He’d known that there was an established rivalry between the schools already that was only exacerbated by the almost entirely one-sided rivalry between Oikawa and Ushijima, but to actually play an official game against them made him truly feel it for the first time.

He respected Oikawa as a pitcher, really. Oikawa was basically the full package: god-like ball control with impressive speed and a wide array of pitches available to him, and he wasn’t underwhelming as far as batting went as well, easily sliding into the fifth position in the order and making enemy pitchers think twice about walking Iwaizumi.

The only real downside to Oikawa was his obnoxious and terrible personality.

“Your batting is embarrassingly shitty,” he’d told him as the opening to their sure-to-be enlightening conversation, and Shirabu had barely had time to find his incredulity before Oikawa continued with, “but you’re a good pitcher.”

He had been shocked, needless to say, and the rest of the conversation had passed in a sort of blur of Oikawa trying to give him batting tips while simultaneously throwing sly digs at him, but he counted it as an overall positive experience made better by the fact that it had been cut short by Iwaizumi dragging him off by the back of his collar and yelling at him in a bastardized mix of Japanese and Spanish.

(Shirabu had caught something about Oikawa being a “meddling asshole.” It was hard not to snort at that one.)

Two outs, one on second.

Up by one, 2-1 count.

Times like this were Shirabu’s least favorite, really. Some pitchers enjoyed the feeling of a head-to-head battle with the batter during a crucial moment, but all it really did was annoy the absolute shit out of Shirabu to know that everything hinged on one of them fucking up.

Two outs, one on second.

Up by one, 2-2 count.

Where there should have been deafening noise, the stands of the stadium were dead silent, everyone waiting with bated breath to see how the game would end as Shirabu wound up to throw another pitch. Ushijima called for one high and inside, but something in Shirabu’s throw was off a wide enough margin to force Ushijima to stand to catch the pitch.

“Ball three!”

Shirabu ground his teeth together and caught the ball on the return throw, inhaling and exhaling again to force himself to calm down. The count was 3-2 and he couldn’t afford any more flubs if they wanted to end this here and take their regional victory all the way to Koshien. One more inhale, one more exhale.

Ushijima called for a cutter, low and inside. An easy enough pitch to force the batter to swing on a ball that moved as it crossed the plate. As always, Shirabu nodded along to it and adjusted his grip on the ball before firing it off.

The ball traveled along its destined path, then crossed the plate exactly where planned.

But it didn’t cut.

Two outs.

One on second.

Up by one.

3-2 count.

And the batter made perfect contact and Shirabu couldn’t do anything but watch in horror as the ball sailed above him, above the infield, above the outfield, and out of the stadium to the tune of the thunderous applause of the crowd.

Losing in the final game felt a lot like tripping at the finish line.

* * *

Nobody had anything to say as they stood outside the stadium waiting for Washijou, every member of the team looking haggard or depressed beyond comprehension. Everything had been right in the palm of their hands after a long semester of work — even _more_ for the senior members of the team, who had bigger and better things on their plate they had to focus on now that their summer had ended — but now they had nothing, and nowhere to go.

The one glaring fact nobody else seemed to notice was that Shirabu had disappeared.

Semi’s concern must have been obvious on his face, because Kawanishi jerked his head in the direction of the stadium and said, “If you’re looking for Kenjirou, he’s around the corner over there, probably being a detriment to his own health again.”

“Thanks,” Semi replied, patting Tendou (face down on the pavement) on the back a couple times before standing up. Tendou just whined but otherwise made no movements to remove himself from the sun-warmed cement.

He was probably the last person Shirabu wanted to see right now, a reminder that no matter how big his ego was, he and Semi both made crucial errors that cost the team everything that would only add to his frustration with himself. But he knew the self-destructive tendencies of a pitcher who just fucked up all too well, and he’d be damned if he left Shirabu to his own stupid devices if he had the chance to even so much as give him someone to talk to.

Overall, Shirabu had pitched an _amazing_ game. While his fastball was just barely fast enough to be called one, he managed to make up for it with a slew of breaking balls even _Semi_ still had trouble aiming as well as Shirabu did. He made it look effortless, and ignoring the couple of wild pitches he threw and that final pitch that sealed their fate, there wasn’t anything to comment on about the technical side of his performance. Both he and Soekawa agreed that neither of them would have been able to pitch the game like that.

It was a real shame that it ended the way it did.

But there was nothing left to do except pick up the pieces and move on so they could prepare for the spring invitational and the next year, which meant dragging Shirabu out of whatever dark corner he’d holed himself up in and hosing him off. If he had learned anything about Shirabu in the past few months, he was probably just sitting around overthinking. He’d round the corner and find him pissy and annoyed as usual, they’d have a talk, everything would be fine.

“Hey, Taichi said you were— Are you _smoking_?”

Apparently he didn’t know Shirabu as well as he thought he did, because his eyes were _definitely_ not deceiving him, if the way Shirabu inhaled too fast and started coughing said anything.

“What the _fuck_ , don’t just sneak up on me!” Shirabu sputtered, still coughing. He was seated in the shade of the building on the ground, back leaning up against the outside wall with his bag next to him, and once Semi got over the initial shock of the situation, he dropped his own bag on the ground and sat next to Shirabu. “What do you want?”

“Well, now that I know you’ve got some, a smoke is a great place to start,” Semi replied, raising an eyebrow. Shirabu scowled but held the pack in his hand out for Semi to take one. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

The answer was instantaneous. “I don’t.”

“I’m sitting right here and you’re smoking. There is a lit cigarette in your mouth right this second.”

“I don’t do it _often_ ,” Shirabu clarified with an irritated sigh. “It’s a stupid habit I picked up a couple years ago that rears its ugly head when I’m stressed out and have no outlet. It’s disgusting but I can’t seem to quit. Congratulations, you’ve unlocked my tragic backstory. Please leave.”

Semi hummed as he rummaged through his bag for his lighter, but his search ultimately came up empty. “Leaving is the last thing I’m gonna do right now, because I know exactly how you feel and I’m not gonna abandon you to deal with it on your own. Can you gimme a light? I can’t find my lighter.”

“I bummed one off a guy that just left.”

He pointed at his own mouth, unlit cigarette bouncing with the movement of his words. “You’ve got one right there.”

Shirabu rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop Semi from leaning forward and touching the ends of the cigarettes together until his unlit one caught the flame from the embers of Shirabu’s. It was a strangely intimate gesture, considering everything between them was only now starting to clear up, but neither of them said anything about it. After the day Shirabu had had, the last thing he needed was to say some dumb shit to Semi and start a fight.

They sat there in silence for a good couple of minutes before Shirabu said, “I really fucked up today.”

“Dicked up the cutter, right?”

His laugh was dry and humorless with an underlying tiredness to it. “Everything about it was fine until it just… didn’t cut. I don’t even know what happened.”

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it too much. It could be worse.”

“Oh, I’d love to hear this. How could it _possibly_ be worse than _tournament-ending screw-up_?”

“Career-ending screw-up,” and, yeah, okay, this was _Semi_ he was talking to. Semi, who would have been a shoe-in for first string if he hadn’t let his pride as a player get in the way of following his coach’s orders; Semi, who wasn’t even sure if he would ever get the chance to stand on first string again but still tried his best to look out for the junior pitchers that could inevitably end up taking whatever spot he was supposed to be in; Semi, who was just _too goddamn nice_ for his own good under the hotheaded exterior.

Semi, who shouldn’t have any interest in helping Shirabu but still did, even if it would make his life a lot easier to just ignore him.

There wasn’t anything he could really say to that, so he let it hang in the air between them as they settled into silence again, more comfortable than usual. The heat was more bearable in the shade, and people of all ages were bustling around after the game.

Shirabu leaned his head back against the wall and said, quietly, for Semi’s ears only, “Thanks, I guess. I still feel like shit, but thanks.”

“Anytime.”

A few more beats of silence passed before Semi broke it.

“Hey, if we’re being honest with each other, can I tell you something?”

“Sure?”

“Your taste in cigarettes is ass.”

Shirabu just flipped him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what the hell is consistent chapter length, amirite
> 
> next time is a blast from the past with semi's first year! highlights include the formation of the everlasting brotherly love of tensemi as well as morishima's duck hell origin story


End file.
